...at 11 ET this morning. Might as well get a thread and comfortable on this one, as it may be a long, bumpy road. Any guesses as to his choice? I'm going to go with Sri Srinivasan or a similar moderate who is currently a federal judge and was confirmed easily, previously.
Nominating somebody he can turn around and play partisan politics with when the GOP doesn't roll right over is typical Obama. Garland is something of a moderate but most of his clerks have gone on to work for the more liberal justices. He isn't really a known quantity as far as hot button issues go and certain GOP old timers have previously expressed support for him. I guess you could say it's a shrewd move on Obama's part but clearly he's once again looking for a way to make the GOP look bad... As though they aren't doing a good enough job on their own....
He will overturn District of Columbia v. Heller in a heartbeat. Confirming this piece of shit is allowing the local government to take away the citizens 2nd amendment right to own a firearm.
Harsh and speculative. I'm not saying he's the right choice to fill Scalia's seat, but the man's career and intellect appear solid. Not sure how the 'POS' label is founded.
I'll add that I'm aware of the NR piece regarding his history in some previous firearms cases. I understand the apprehension, but disparaging the guy and jumping straight to him obliterating the 2nd amendment is a bit extreme, imo.
His stance on the 2nd Amendment is not an unintentional element of his nomination. It serves several purposes: 1. He's dead in the Senate. 0.0% chance he is confirmed. Nobody knows this better than President Obama. 2. It will serve to bring President Obama's laser-focus on gun control laws back and directly in the forefront. 3. If the GOP-controlled Senate is stupid enough meet with, much less to hold hearings for, or allow a vote on the floor...and he's not confirmed, President Obama will use this as the final cited reason to support his instituting the sweeping changes to our gun control laws via Executive Order, and which he has long been itching to do. And i'm not even willing to say that these changes will be unreasonable, necessarily ("They're taking our guns!"), but it will once again prove that there are few things more dangerous in this world than a lame-duck Democratic president, in their waning days of office.
I sincerely doubt any meaningful changes on gun control will come from executive order. But I guess some folks will see small things as meaningful that I would not.
Democratic strategists have totally mishandled the gun issue, imo. The last few years, it was an opportunity to leverage a national mental health system and try to build a case for gun control by using conservative-friendly means like tax rebates on gun safes (and seeing if there were any change in # of accidents, gun thefts, etc).
Unintentionally or not....what you're effectively exhibiting here is President Obama's failure to work with and compromise with the GOP to gain bipartisan approval of just such common sense measures, as those you mentioned here, and many others. The sad reality is that President Obama could have gotten a considerable amount more accomplished on guns (and so many other issues), had he not been so quick to assume the moral high ground, or more realistically saw that the "mandate" which he wielded over everyone's head was never as capable to cause real harm as he believed it could. Just my $.02
Yep. It puts the GOP in an awkward spot. More annoying than truly bothersome though. Either way, Obama has fulfilled his constitutional duty and can now wash his hands of it.
You just like to argue. Yes, there is precedent. But it still means they have to block someone who has been praised by conservatives before, including the chief justice. He's not a bad pick, even if Congress chooses not to hold a vote. That's awkward.
