Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Obama calls on Republicans to delay filling vacancy – as it happened
Amid tributes to the late supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former president adds weight to calls for vacancy to remain until after November election
Who could imagine that?
And weren’t the Democrats simply incandescent with rage when Republicans did exactly that to Merrick Garland? Delayed the confirmation hearings until after the election? You know, the without double standards they’d have no standards at all thing?
Extraordinary to think that Septics have judges of almost 90 years of age.
In effect, Obama is claiming that all appointees to the Supreme Court are selected for political purposes, and that he wants therefore to increase the probability that one agreeing with his politics will be appointed.
Cheap, nasty, politics, eh?
What happened to Justice, which is surely above this week’s petty party politics?
@EdwardLud: some of ours don’t even have an IQ that high!
Anyway, once the Democrats unearth some obliging accuser of whoever Trump’s nominee turns out to be, he’ll never get it through before the election, will he?
And if he loses, does that mean his nominee is automatically withdrawn?
Edward Lud,
It’s an awful system. People appointed 25-30 years ago can just go changing the law as they see fit. I’m pro-gay marriage and pro-abortion being available, but it’s a bad way of doing it that undermines democracy, robs the people of a voice.
The US would not still be arguing about abortion if politicians had done it.
And I’ve no doubt there will be gushing words about RBG over the next few days, but her vote over the Bush/Gore decision was rotten, partisan. Nothing to do with the constitution, she just wanted Gore to win (and it was a 7-2 decision with 2 liberals supporting Bush).
Well, it’s a clichéd joke based on a cliché, but who cares? You should only say good of the dead. She’s dead. Good.
‘Twill be interesting to see if the Republicans manage to get their candidate in before the election. Of course the fact that the Dems are trying to get another of their supporters into the Court will give Trump voters another reason to turn out.
Wonder who the Dems will put up. On current form, someone from #BLM’s legal team?
Surely the GOP has a contingency plan for RBGs demise, it has been imminent for years. They should have found a clean nominee by now and be prepared to counter dem delay tactics.
That would show a hitherto unknown level of competence and forward planning. You might as well ask the same from the tories here.
There is already a list of potential replacements, front runners being Amy Coney Barrett and Amul Thapar.
Trump has the option of suspending Congress, what with the emergency the Dems rushedinto with Covid. The Dems just have to act crazy for three days and three nights then he can step in and appoint whoever he wants without formalities. He needs a full bench given that the Dems have lined up over 800 lawyers to contest the election results.
It needs to be a woman, purely from a tactical point of view. Bit harder to invent any #MeToo activity for a woman. It would also be great if they could find a suitably conservative non-white woman to nominate, that would make the resulting attacks on her even more hypocritical.
Surely the double standard is that the Republicans insisted it was too close to the election in March 2016, but now it’s apparently just dandy now
@Jim Condoleezza Rice would be a great choice, if only she was interested in the job
“Surely the GOP has a contingency plan for RBGs demise, it has been imminent for years. They should have found a clean nominee by now ”
Kavanagh was clean, but that doesn’t stop them.
The ‘joke’ (but not really) is already going around: ‘I was raped by whoever Trump nominates to replace Justice Ginsburg.’
Republicans should put in their replacement if they can. They are in power. They should have no fear of what people say about them. They aren’t in junior high school. TRUMP has backbone. He may convince McConnell to get it done.
They refused to put Merrick Garland in. They had the power.
What good is power if you don’t use it?
Doubt if cocaine Mitch will need any persuading.
And there has been a list of proposed GOP candidates since Trump became nominee.
There are three potential GOP defectors in the Senate, which would produce a tie. In which case Pence gets the casting vote.
And whatever, it won’t affect the election. RBG’s replacement has been imminent for some time. Those who care have already taken sides.
Surely the double standard is that the Republicans insisted it was too close to the election in March 2016, but now it’s apparently just dandy now
Sure, but the difference is that the 2016 Republicans were in a constitutional position to insist; they held the Senate with an opposition (lame duck) President. The 2020 Democrats have no constitutional position to insist as they hold neither the Senate nor the Presidency.
The 2020 Republicans have a strong constitutional position to proceed, simply because holding the Senate and the (first term) Presidency allows them to. The President nominating and the Senate confirming is the constitutional arrangement. I don’t think the founders included a provision for “It’s not fair!”
McConnell has balls!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/18/mitch-mcconnell-president-trumps-nominee-to-replace-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-will-receive-senate-vote/
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/politically-incorrect-joke-hillary-ruth-bader-ginsburg
“It needs to be a woman, purely from a tactical point of view. Bit harder to invent any #MeToo activity for a woman.”
Remember the dear, dead days when Slick Willie was struggling for an Attorney General because his preferred female candidates had employed illegal immigrants as nannies? He ended up with that very tall, childless woman who had all those people murdered at Waco.
P.S. The second photo of her on her WKP page looks awfully mannish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Reno
@Gamecock
If the Democrats win the Senate and the presidency in November, you’re fine with them using their power? You’d have no argument if Biden appointed enough extra judges for a left-wing majority? Nothing except convention that says only 9 judges, after all.
Heh:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/401523/
Pay attention, Matthew. The Dems do whateverthefuck they want to do. They are not constrained by decency. The Republicans are choked by their decency. I say Republicans should do what they can while they still have power. It will have no impact on what Dems do later, as Dems are unrestrained.
Democrats are already talking about court packing. The Republicans should make sure that talk is heard by the electorate.
In addition to being untroubled by calls for consistent policy, Senate Republicans and Donald Trump have certainly taken an overdose of stupid pills–not for the first time, of course.
Imagine if Trump, Mitchell and Lindsey Graham were to announce: ‘In keeping with how we treated the nomination by Barack Obama of Merrick Garland, we will allow the next president to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice.’
What a motivator for the Trump base.
One marvels at the hypocrisy along with the stupidity.
Exactly, Thomas. Hypocrisy and stupidity are the guiding principles of the modern Republican party. Reagan must be spinning in his grave.
Having had the differences explained to you you persist in your error, accusing others of stupidity as you go. I shall enjoy further lefty whining as this progresses.
How is it not hypocritical Pjf? You’ve explained why it’s not unconstitutional (which I never said it was), but not why it’s not a double standard.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
— Mitch McConnell, March 2016.
Putting aside all the politics, is there even *time* to go through the required processes to appoint a new Supreme Court member before the election? The election’s only five weeks away.
Lame duck Balack Obama tried to get in a late supreme court justice. The senate stopped him.
Trump is going to try to get in a late supreme court justice. Dems accuse Trump of doing what Obama tried.
I forget where I read that if a current Senator is nominated, they skip the preliminaries and go straight to the vote. About a week ago PDJT added Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton to his list, almost as if he knew..
I would like to see Cruz on the court. But he has said he doesn’t want it.
For now, I assume.
How is it not hypocritical Pjf?
I didn’t say it wasn’t; in fact I said “sure” above with regards the double standard. Double standards and hypocrisy don’t matter in politics (except to batter your opponent with, as here).
Power is what counts, preferably within the law and accountable to the people.
The US and the world are in a battle vs Marxist evil.
Trump–do ANYTHING to win and stomp the socialist scum.
Why is Trump beholden to 2016’s official Republican position?
Furthermore, Ginsburg lingered on in the role rather than stepping down – completely unable to perform her job – specifically in order to thwart the proper and timely process of replacement by a Trump nominee.
In this politically-motivated and engineered scenario Trump should not feel in any way constrained by supposed protocols which would delay her replacement by even one day.
Democrats are already talking about court packing. The Republicans should make sure that talk is heard by the electorate.
Surely that is what it is about. Trump reminding the voters that he will need to be re-elected to prevent a liberal president putting in activists. There were quite a few people that voted for Trump last time round solely because they knew that a lot of the judges were unwell.
He won’t have time to organise a candidate before the election — he would need every Senator in the House every time there was a possibility of a vote, and that will be hard to arrange come election time. It was hard enough around the time of the impeachment. Even he would struggle to have the chutzpah to do it after the election but before he was due to leave, should he lose.
But getting the Democrats to propose something as flagrantly wrong as packing the court is exactly what he needs. His suggestion of appointing now is hypocritical given that Obama had much more time (much more) and it was “too soon” to the election then, but only small potatoes in comparison.
I can imagine a fair few anti-Trump conservative women deciding that they prefer Trump (who despite the sales pitch from the Left hasn’t been a dictator) to abstaining. That group not supporting him is why he is further behind than he was last time round.