Trump picks Colo. appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court

I didn't agree with the Republicans not even considering Obama's (politically centrist and qualified) nominee, and I disagree with the Democrats opposition to (the very conservative, but also qualified) Gorsuch as well. This political tit for tat is just tiresome.

 

There is no incentive for bipartisan agreement anymore.

 

I disagree, now that you can't just threaten to do the paper filibuster it should lead to more bipartisan agreement in that if you don't come to the table and discuss things in good faith then you'll get shut out of the process entirely. The real filibuster was a good thing, the paper filibuster was garbage.

 

I think whoever is in the minority will just get shut out. I am not optimistic there will be any good faith negotiation. The country is too polarized now.

 

Yeah but putting an end to the paper filibuster for the most important things should lead to more cooperation and less obstructionism. There's no question that the last decade or so have done nothing but further divide the nation so it's about time we start to work towards bringing people back together.

 

It is not acceptable, KC. Mere months ago an acclaimed jurist of deep experience, nominated in plenty of time for confirmation and by all accounts a moderate politically, a man in his early '60's, was not given even a hearing. Yet a 49 year old very conservative replacement being shoved into Judge Garland's seat is supposed to sail through simply because it's a Republican pick? The Democratic Party should do everything it can, every trick in the book, to delay or defeat this nomination.

If the GOP trashes Senate rules of long standing to force through Mr. trump's pick, raising partisanship to new heights, heights of Republican partisanship for the last 8 years one would think couldn't be surpassed, why on earth should Democrats roll over on their backs and let them do what they want? They dished it out, and their are dishing it out, but the worm will turn. The day will come, sooner than these soulless, dishonorable Republican extremists believe, when they will be served a cold meal of revenge. I look forward to it.

Some of you are already "tired" of the "tit for tat?" Good lord. You have incredibly short memories. This is politics. It's real. A few gentlemen and women in the Senate from both parties attempted to find common ground during President Obama's two terms, attempted to find a way to preserve the comity that is a tradition in the Senate, and has been for decades. Tried to work together to do what they were elected for. They were overwhelmed by the extremists on the Right, who had no desire for compromise. None. Zero. So why on God's green Earth should the Democratic Party turn the other cheek. For what purpose. To encourage gridlock? To encourage partisanship? If what the Republican Congress did during Obama's presidency goes unpunished, with no consequences for their unprecedented actions, then we are lost. I would be ashamed of my party. Partisanship will be diminished why a high price is paid by its worst offenders.

 

With a Republican majority, they could've held hearings, then deny Garland the nomination.

The events last year was some petty and cowardly bullshit.

 

They could have. And really should have. But that would have forced each republican senator to have to vote against an centrist, qualified judge. And own responsibility of that vote. Just like Democrat senators did with Gorsuch. The republican senators didn't, as they were not responsible, to the tradition of the senate, nor to the American citizens.

 

Plagerizm should he dealt harshly. I get pissed when people do that stuff at work.

 

Confirmed.

 

It's good that this nonsense is over. I can only imagine how bad it'll be if/when Ginsberg dies.

 

No big deal, the founders wanted the senate to prevent unqualified people becoming judges, this is not how senate is working now, so I have no problem with this at all. Only thing I want is for GOP to shut up when it is Democrats doing the same thing. In fact I have no problem with remove filibuster completely.

 

Since the filibuster was effectively killed by the switch to a paper filibuster then yeah, you might as well end it entirely.

When it comes to people "shutting up", I think both sides should. The same Democrats who were b****ing about Republicans' "obstructionism" were the same ones supporting the paper filibuster of a qualified judge simply because they didn't get their way when it came to a different nominee. The hypocrisy of both sides is nauseating.

 

I'm also happy that the process is over. We all knew what would happen. I agree with you mostly but I think you are being a little unfair to democrats. Republicans began the partisan blockade of judges with Obamas lower court appointments. It's the same thing that democrats did now. That's the first giant roadblock on partisan lines. We're talking about dozens of justices. To be fair, you started to see partisan votes during George W's tenure but all of his justices had hearings and were not subject to a filibuster blockade. Many of the democrat leadership voted against filibusters including Clinton, Obama and Shumer.

The Garland incident was truly unprecedented and still borderline unconstitutional. Republicans mistepersented what Biden said and called it a Rule even though no vote was taken or precedent established and it called for a nominee to be nominated and considered after an election. Even if democrats concede what Biden said, it's just 1 dude giving his opinion. He was the Vice President for Garland but the constition does not grant the Vice President the ability to put forth a nomination. It was real BS. There was no execution on Bidens thoughts therefor no precedent. There was a precedent set with Garland. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the situation was reversed but I don't see Democrats taking the senate while Trump is in office. I can't imagine republicans rejected a Trump nominee in the last year of his presidency because there is an election coming up.

I agree this is ugly and I don't know how it's going to get better. The only thing I can think of is if Trump realizes he had a better chance at passing the things that are important to him by working with democrats and if that manifests itself with a moderate apointee to replace RGB, Breyer or Kennedy. I'm guessing a African American justice so he can more easily replace Thomas with an uber conservative judge when he retires. They had to reach pretty far outside the courts to find Thomas who never should have been confirmed.

Anyway, sad and it's just the beginning. Four more Trump appointees are on the way if history has taught us anything.

 

Republicans are the filibuster party. They are going to regret this.

 

Not anytime soon, and that's all they think about these days. They've gone from the long-range party to the quarterly party pretty quickly.

They're all like...

 

You do realize that this doesn't eliminate the filibuster in normal situations right? You also realize that if the situation was reversed it would be the Democrats eliminating the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees to get one of their people put on the bench.....I mean you do right?

This won't really have any effect long term.

 

Don't agree that the senate wouldn't have a vote on Garland, but the dems could fix that by winning. Republicans outmaneuvered them and put up a very qualified conservative justice IMO.

 

The house has already proven that a simple majority voting system allows for bipartisanship.

Bwahahahahahaha

 

That's true. Senate would have been lucky to get another Merrick Garland or face a more liberal judge that Clinton could have nominated. Sigh....