RIP Antonin Scalia

Definitely you should cast your moral lot here with the chairman of the committee that rejected Bork -- and after Biden himself had said he would support Bork. So, yeah, whatever hypothetical agreement he said he would abide by in that video, go with that.

 

Amazing how fast things get off the rails; the fundamental point is that over 11 mos before the duly elected president's term expires, the majority leader of the Senate unequivocally states that he will completely abdicate his constitutional duty to consider a Supreme Court nominee simply because an election is upcoming.

That's wrong. Plain and simple. Biden's prior comments are inapplicable. Why? Because he never failed to fulfill his Constitutional duty.

McConnell, completely independent of the merits of any nominee, says he will ignore his Constitutional duty. If that were a Dem. Senator, I would not stand for it. That is wrong and we the people of the country deserve better representation.

 

How is he going to "completely abdicate his constitutional duty"?

Obama will nominate. McConnell and Co. will reject. That's all constitutional. It was constitutional when Biden led the rejection of Bork, after saying he would support Bork's nomination.

Him trying to get Obama not to nominate (an effort that will fail BTW, which should have been obvious to everyone) is hardly unconstitutional. He isn't taking any real action. He is just politicking.

 

As it should.

 

Biden voted against Bork, both in the committee that he chaired and in the full Senate vote.

Bork Rejected by Senate Panel, 9-5 : Heflin, a Key Southerner, Joins Foes; Reagan to Press On With the Fight

He also was praised by both sides for how he chaired the committee.

Washington Talk: The Bork Hearings; For Biden: Epoch of Belief, Epoch of Incredulity

He did say that he would vote for him, if he proved himself "after the investigations." They investigated him, and he didn't like what he saw.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124294934268945409

Sounds like he gave Bork a fair hearing in spite of political differences. Something that I would be happy to cast my moral lot with. Unlike the GOP, who doesn't want to give anyone a fair hearing.

 

It's politics. I understand that the Republicans really, really don't want to appoint a liberal justice, and I don't blame them.

Where I think they are going over the line is trying to appeal to the American people that it's somehow the right choice to hold off for 11 months and let the next president select the nominee.

That's silly. If you want to obstruct, obstruct. Don't try to get the American people to do your work for you.

 

The current president contributed to a filibuster. Fine. Let's see if the current GOP senators have the balls to filibuster for 10 months.

 

They won't need to.

 

Scalia's death probably linked to obesity, diabetes and coronary artery disease, physician says

 

You're right, they won't. They just announced that they won't even bother to hold hearings no matter who gets nominated. And even more pathetic, McConnell didn't even want to talk about the political risks because he didn't want to go "off message."

In other words, they don't have the guts to go on record. You'd think that a party that is so eager to send our kids to go off and die in a foreign war wouldn't be such chickenshits when it comes to putting their objection to a Supreme Court nominee on the record.

 

"Probably" is always good enough for those who don't really want to know.