White House severely limiting the FBI investigation.

9/29/2018 7:58:05 PM

As I said earlier, it’s way easier to demonstrate someone is a habitual liar than a attempted rapist 25+ years ago.

With the said, the Democrats are borderline retarded and 85% impotent, so while I’d still say the odds of him being confirmed are 50/50, at least they aren’t as bad as yesterday when I was ready to leap off a cliff.

9/29/2018 9:03:13 PM

Trump just tweeted there are no limits on investigation. Hopefully fbi are smart enough to ignore any staff orders and go off that official presidential statement

9/29/2018 11:45:55 PM

I wonder if trump legitimately thinks Kavanaugh is innocent, or if he thinks they won’t find anything in 5 days, or if he expects they might spread themselves too thin?

9/30/2018 12:34:17 AM

It's just gonna end with a four hundred page report about the time Renate put coke in her butt and had a threesome with PJ and Squi on Tobin's boat.

9/30/2018 3:49:10 AM

someone explain this

people are saying it is a bribe during the hearing?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/505323403225110/permalink/519897595101024

9/30/2018 4:16:04 AM

That’s typically how they hand out the Soros checks, so I’d say there’s 90% chance that’s all that was. No biggie.

9/30/2018 6:40:53 AM

I read three comments from that video and now I feel stupider

9/30/2018 8:56:42 AM

I don't always hand out bribes, but when I do, I make sure to do it in front of as many TV cameras as possible.

9/30/2018 9:43:45 AM

lol you would have to be an absolute moron to think that's a bribe.

9/30/2018 9:53:50 AM

Lol Opie in here posting QAnon videos and using Trump's favorite phrase "people are saying..."

9/30/2018 11:24:14 AM

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/30/pack-the-supreme-court/

Compelling article for Democrats adding a new judge to the court

9/30/2018 1:03:03 PM

That's not very compelling to me.

9/30/2018 2:32:37 PM

SNL parsing of SCOTUS nominee hearings... from 1991

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/cold-opening/n10108

9/30/2018 5:32:50 PM

^^
why?

9/30/2018 7:05:30 PM

wolfpack!

9/30/2018 7:22:26 PM

^^ because it sounds like some bullshit the NC GOP would pull, and there would be retribution, and the politicization of the nomination process is unavoidable but I'd prefer not to extend that disaster any further, and that battle was lost with Garland...trying that dumbass shit would be a gross overcorrection

9/30/2018 8:11:15 PM

Remember, folks. The goal of politics is not to win, it's to never be as bad as the other side.

Why play politics when you can just sit there and have the moral high ground?

9/30/2018 8:27:58 PM

^
Trump’s slash and burn strategy doesn’t poll well

We’ll know in about 5 weeks whether this translates to electoral wins... in principle it should translate to massive losses

If Dems don’t manage to take the senate, I’d argue they need to consider less “polite” tactics. There’s no steady-state of society where things operate normally, there’s always hard battles that need fighting, and when you look at the loss of elections across the country, Democrats haven’t been fighting hard enough and now we have Trumpism.

9/30/2018 8:48:08 PM

Republicans have no qualms swinging the needle WAY THE FUCK to the right, over and over, but the center-left is afraid of "over-correcting". What does that even mean to you, synapse? Why do you care so much about what the snakes on the right think? It's our time to take it back.

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/stopme/chapter02.html

Quote :

" The American political system, since at least 1968, has been operating like a ratchet, and both parties -- Republicans and Democrats -- play crucial, mutually reinforcing roles in its operation. The electoral ratchet permits movement only in the rightward direction. The Republican role is fairly clear; the Republicans apply the torque that rotates the thing rightward. The Democrats' role is a little less obvious. The Democrats are the pawl. They don't resist the rightward movement -- they let it happen -- but whenever the rightward force slackens momentarily, for whatever reason, the Democrats click into place and keep the machine from rotating back to the left. Here's how it works. In every election year, the Democrats come and tell us that the country has moved to the right, and so the Democratic Party has to move right too in the name of realism and electability. Gotta keep these right-wing madmen out of the White House, no matter what it takes. (Actually, they don't say they're going to move to the right; they say they're going to move to the center. But of course it amounts to the same thing, if you're supposed to be left of center. It's the same direction of movement.) So now the Democrats have moved to the "center." But of course this has the effect of shifting the "center" farther to the right. Now, as a consequence, the Republicans suddenly don't seem so crazy anymore -- they're closer to the center, through no effort of their own, because the center has shifted closer to them. So they can move even further right, and still end up no farther from the "center" than they were four years ago. In fact, the Democrats' rightward shift not only enables the Republicans to move farther right themselves; it actually compels them to do so, if they want to maintain their identity as the angry-white-guy party par excellence. "

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 9:13 PM. Reason : .]

9/30/2018 8:52:20 PM

So we take take the SC to 11 justices when in power, then the GOP takes it to 15 when they're in charge next, then we make it 21 etc? For what?

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 9:20 PM. Reason : That's not a game I find very compelling. ]

9/30/2018 9:17:29 PM

No, Dems take it to 15 when in power and make DC and PR into states

9/30/2018 9:20:19 PM

And split CA into 12 states yada yada yada

How about we win elections instead.

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 9:21 PM. Reason : This is a dumb conversation ]

9/30/2018 9:20:56 PM

You can apply that line of thought to everything in government. Why bother to push leftist policy if the right will just take it back?

9/30/2018 9:22:03 PM

Dems have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 elections and have to win far over 50% to claim the house of reps

Reps stole a SC justice from one of the most popular (by vote) presidents in history to give over to one of least popular. Everything is on the table.

"consolidating power is what the GOP does!! When Dems get power they should just be really nice, then if GOP get it back surely they won't consolidate power again!"

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 9:28 PM. Reason : E]

9/30/2018 9:26:03 PM

Quote :

"So we take take the SC to 11 justices when in power, then the GOP takes it to 15 when they're in charge next, then we make it 21 etc? For what?"

I can address this point better actually: so we aren't stuck with a conservative majority supreme court for decades.

9/30/2018 9:43:06 PM

Quote :

"Why bother to push leftist policy if the right will just take it back?"

That's not how it works, but what I described is how that would work.

Quote :

"Dems have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 elections"

That's now how it works either.

Quote :

"Reps stole a SC justice from one of the most popular"

Because the Democrats were a bunch of spineless bitches. This is not the answer to that.

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 10:04 PM. Reason : Elections matter. Win more elections.]

9/30/2018 10:03:54 PM

Quote :

"what I described is how that would work."

Ok, good? It's a lot better than the alternative.

More on the topic:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/9k7x0f/on_packing_the_court/

9/30/2018 10:10:27 PM

Fuck that

Not gonna happen anyway

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 10:19 PM. Reason : dumb conversation]

[Edited on September 30, 2018 at 10:19 PM. Reason : I feel like we're only discussing it because of a moron]

9/30/2018 10:17:10 PM

lol i mean you're the only one here who thinks it's a bad idea.

9/30/2018 10:22:35 PM

Quote :

"So we take take the SC to 11 justices when in power, then the GOP takes it to 15 when they're in charge next, then we make it 21 etc? For what? "

You stop the gop from taking it to 15. Look at Lindsey Graham’s meltdown at Kavanaugh’s hearing, saying that’s the worst politics he’s ever seen.

After the gop held a seat open for a year— how many cases the the SC hear then?

People have a short memory, and this is how politics is supposed to operate. You can’t give up a fight before it even starts.

9/30/2018 10:22:47 PM

The supreme court is a ridiculous farce to begin with. 9 unelected people without term limits hold absurd power over the entire country.

9/30/2018 10:30:58 PM

Hey while we're at it lets abolish the senate.

People need representatives, acres of land do not.

10/1/2018 12:00:15 AM

So what is going to happen if RBG kicks the bucket?

Even as a conservative, I don't want a packed court. Arguments and discourse are a good way to make sure that good, fair laws are upheld. If the SC is just going to rubber-stamp anything conservative that passes their way - that won't work for me.

And after this shit-show that has been Kavanaugh, you know that Trump is going to go out there and find the most ridiculously conservative female judge he can find.

10/1/2018 8:52:15 AM

you should have voted for clinton then, i mean wtf were you expecting to happen?

10/1/2018 9:47:46 AM

I'd rather blue states just ignore SCOTUS decisions they don't agree with rather than packing the court. Assuming we get a Democrat President in 2020 and House/Senate, then the court's impact can be substantially marginalized. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch can strike down all the liberal legislation they want while cackling in glee, they'll only be fucking over red states. Force the court to re-establish its own legitimacy.

10/1/2018 11:19:47 AM

I agree that the court, and in large part the government on the whole, has to somehow re-establish legitimacy but how so? All the current ways that I can imagine that could be done are a very bad outcome in the current climate.

And only worse if you have half of the country actively ignoring the Supreme Court in protest

[Edited on October 1, 2018 at 11:39 AM. Reason : ?]

10/1/2018 11:39:09 AM

^^ that's craziness

Lots of blue people live in red states, and not even red state people deserve the cruelty of their own idelogies

10/1/2018 12:25:34 PM

I mean, yeah, I imagine most of the people on this board are "blue people" who live in a red state, me included. But how would that work in practice? If a Democrat Congress passed a net neutrality law that the conservative SCOTUS struck down, what are telecoms gonna do if all the large blue states and federal government enforced the law anyway? Obviously not every example would work that cleanly, but like we're seeing with some of the environmental regulations and healthcare, at some point the market and public opinion rule.

Anyway, this is just spitballing a bunch of bad choices. The real solution is win a bunch of elections, redistrict and then figure out how to deal with a rapist on the court.

10/1/2018 12:40:08 PM

i'm just not seeing how wasting tax payer money on legal challenges you know you will lose is a good solution

10/1/2018 12:41:39 PM

I was slammed at work last week and missed a lot of Brett Kavanaugh's testimony during the Christine Blassey Ford hearing.

After having seen last night's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (below), I'm not sure how any rational person could still deem him a good fit for the Supreme Court.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opi8X9hQ7q8


Also, count me as another vote against increasing the size of the Supreme Court in order to pack it with liberal justices. Republicans would clearly use it as precedent to do the same when they inevitably retake power.

[Edited on October 1, 2018 at 12:48 PM. Reason : ]

10/1/2018 12:46:50 PM

Quote :

"After having seen last night's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (below), I'm not sure how any rational person could still deem him a good fit for the Supreme Court."

rational people shouldn't be getting their opinions on politics from John Oliver.

10/1/2018 1:19:02 PM

yeah matt damon did a better job

10/1/2018 1:32:10 PM

Agreed, eleusis. Oliver is a bit too far to the right to be considered a reliable source of news & analysis.

This article from Current Affairs is great:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying

[Edited on October 1, 2018 at 1:58 PM. Reason : .]

10/1/2018 1:57:47 PM

How about decreasing the court to just 5? Let's say... RBG, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Garland.

10/1/2018 2:04:21 PM

To be clear, I was more or less just referring to the clips of Brett Kavanaugh that I saw during John Oliver's segment.

(I defer to John Oliver's judgement on which Care Bear could get it.)

[Edited on October 1, 2018 at 2:58 PM. Reason : ]

10/1/2018 2:48:10 PM

I was going to say, that wasn't John Oliver dressed as Kavanaugh acting all emotional and unstable... that was actually Kavanaugh acting all emotional and unstable.

10/1/2018 3:09:58 PM

At this point, are we admitting that the Supreme Court don't mean nothing?

Like, if they follow through, when do we get the local go-ahead to do whatever we want and stuff?


[Edited on October 1, 2018 at 3:59 PM. Reason : ?]

10/1/2018 3:53:52 PM

Go ahead Bridget, do whatever you want.

10/1/2018 4:10:00 PM

^^Could the feds just start pulling funding they give to the state if they don't play nice with SC rulings? I've never really wondered this until now, but what means does the federal government, outside of money, have to compel states into following federal law?

And "pulling funding" is a pretty wide net. There are all types of funding that states get. What type would be pulled, all funding?

I guess Colorado would know, since they are rubbing legal mary jane in the face of federal laws.

10/1/2018 5:24:15 PM