The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

[joecct]

Nope. There's no pocket consent. He could do revolving recess appointments, though. They only expire at the end of the next session, and nothing would prevent him for continuing to reappointment Garland until they vote on him.

Doesn't a recess appointment expire when the Congress adjourns sine die (late December 2016??). However, the Senate must be in recess and we've seen both parties play games with that.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

For the record, I made it perfectly clear that I thought the GOP was acting like a group of children.

 

[Handyman]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

NC: This isn't racist, is it?
Federal Appeals Court: ROTFL

This is the part where some small government GOPer (or conscientious libertarian) will whine how the law isnt racist cause it is super easy to get an ID right?

 

[unofan]

Doesn't a recess appointment expire when the Congress adjourns sine die (late December 2016??). However, the Senate must be in recess and we've seen both parties play games with that.

And what I'm saying is he could immediately reappointment him to a new recess appointment at that time.

 

[bronconick]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

Nope. There's no pocket consent. He could do revolving recess appointments, though. They only expire at the end of the next session, and nothing would prevent him for continuing to reappointment Garland until they vote on him.

Except the GOP has one or two Senators stick around to run pro forma sessions so that the Senate never actually goes into recess.

 

[unofan]

Except the GOP has one or two Senators stick around to run pro forma sessions so that the Senate never actually goes into recess.

There's an automatic recess when one Congress ends and the next one convenes. Even if it's only for a second, past presidents have gotten recess appointments through at that time.

 

[joecct]

Except the GOP has one or two Senators stick around to run pro forma sessions so that the Senate never actually goes into recess.

For the record, Harry Reid did it too, for the same reason.

Sometimes, politics suck.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

Coulter gonna Coulter.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

This is a very interesting article on National Review by an editor at The Federalist. (I don't particularly respect either, since they often (maybe, usually) substitute pseudo-intellectual rationalization for sincere argument. But this is them at their best.) The Comments are ultra-depressing as to what has happened to "conservative" thought process, but that is not the article's fault.

What if there were a large field of GOP presidential candidates and, owing to a confluence of events, someone like Duke fairly captured the Republican nomination? Would conservatives cast their votes for him in the general over someone as disagreeable as Hillary Clinton? I mean, you all know how terrible she is! What if Duke promised to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices? Let’s say he drew up an extensive list of Federalist Society–approved justices whom conservatives simply loved? Would they vote for him then? RNC spokesman Sean Spicer says no. But please don’t tell me you’re willing to surrender the court to a progressive agenda for a generation. If you don’t vote for Duke it would be tantamount to abandoning law and order. As pro-Trump Republicans often stress, national elections are a binary choice. It’s not just about justices, either. Duke would almost certainly build an impenetrable wall along the Mexican border to stop the flow of illegal immigration. Duke would promise to dismantle sanctuary cities. This would, I’ve been assured, save American lives and livelihoods. Polls show that most Republicans desire a more secure border. So what if he says some shocking things about Jews and African Americans from time to time? Duke would also limit Islamic immigration to keep America safe again. Duke would shut down “unfair” trade agreements with Mexico, China, and others — deals that purportedly cost millions of American jobs and destroy our manufacturing base. Duke might even pull out of the unfair World Trade Organization and punish unpatriotic companies that move their headquarters abroad. On foreign policy, he would demand that the Baltic states pay up. If they don’t, he would leave their fate to the whims of an autocratic Russia. Duke would rein in American involvement in the Middle East and Asia. Duke opposed the Iraq War, which, according to Trump, makes him one of the leading foreign-policy experts in the nation. These issues are the main thrust of Trumpism, the positions that rouse the base and distinguish the billionaire from a lily-livered GOP that has failed its constituency for the past 30 years. You know elitists would simply hate Duke, probably because the Klansman refuses to be constrained by political correctness. And if shunning political correctness is, in and of itself, a position worth celebrating in a candidate, Trump is a mere piker in comparison. Why not put the resources of the RNC behind someone who can discuss white working-class struggles in even starker terms? Americans are mad. They are scared. Duke will fight for them. Let’s also not forget that Duke is not indebted to Wall Street or big donors, like Mitt Romney was. He does not answer to lobbyists, like Jeb Bush does. He is not an ordinary politician, like Marco Rubio is. He does not play by the rules. Shouldn’t this be enough? Duke also won the primary process fair and square. Wouldn’t Republicans be obligated to support him? Doesn’t the “will of the people” transcend the piddling concerns of the sore losers? Isn’t opposing the will of the majority tantamount to being a traitor to your cause? According to some of Trump’s greatest allies in the Republican party, imploring people to vote their conscience is now a “chilling” display of nonconformity. What could possibly be more important than the unification of a political party?

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

Coulter gonna Coulter.

First comment after the article:

Prominent Trump supporters:

Vladimir Putin
Kim Jong-un
David Duke
Robert Mugabe
Ann Coulter

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

The ‘smoking gun’ proving North Carolina Republicans tried to disenfranchise black voters

Supporters of the law, like North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, have long maintained that requirements like these were necessary to prevent voter fraud. But time and time again, scholars and legal experts have found that the type of fraud these laws are meant to combat is largely nonexistent.

One of the most comprehensive studies on the subject found only 31 individual cases of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion votes cast in the United States since the year 2000. Researchers have found that reports of voter fraud are roughly as common as reports of alien abduction.

In particular, the court found that North Carolina lawmakers requested data on racial differences in voting behaviors in the state. "This data showed that African Americans disproportionately lacked the most common kind of photo ID, those issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)," the judges wrote.

So the legislators made it so that the only acceptable forms of voter identification were the ones disproportionately used by white people. "With race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African Americans," the judges wrote. "The bill retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess."

The data also showed that black voters were more likely to make use of early voting — particularly the first seven days out of North Carolina's 17-day voting period. So lawmakers eliminated these seven days of voting. "After receipt of this racial data, the General Assembly amended the bill to eliminate the first week of early voting, shortening the total early voting period from seventeen to ten days," the court found.

Most strikingly, the judges point to a "smoking gun" in North Carolina's justification for the law, proving discriminatory intent. The state argued in court that "counties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black" and "disproportionately Democratic," and said it did away with Sunday voting as a result.

 

[joecct]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

It's not a mandate, it's a guideline!!!

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news...b49629-bc5b-036e-e053-0100007--388600451.html

Based on everyone else's opinion, it sure looked like a mandate. Now it appears to be a red line in the sand.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

It's not a mandate, it's a guideline!!!

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news...b49629-bc5b-036e-e053-0100007--388600451.html

Based on everyone else's opinion, it sure looked like a mandate. Now it appears to be a red line in the sand.

You do get the difference though, right? A guidance essentially takes the onus off the school board in drafting language to address the issue if they want to. It's basically giving them a template so they don't need to hire the 7 Borg lawyers from the Simpsons to make sure anything they draft doesn't somehow f-ck with some other right recognized by the DOJ.

I do not understand the terror and fury this is kicking up. What are we really talking about here? The average school won't have a single trans student in a decade. The average school in whatever dumbf-ck rural district makes a big deal about this won't have one in a century, because he'll have been terrorized by his classmates (or his parents) long before it becomes an issue. All the USG is doing is giving a school a CYA. It's not the end of western civilization.

What the heck is it with religious people and other people's sexuality? Stop creeping on people -- it's weird.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

What the heck is it with religious people and other people's sexuality? Stop creeping on people -- it's weird.

It's nothing new. Pat Robertson has been obsessed with discussing the finer details of gay anal sex for years. I've always found it a bit suspicious.

But in all seriousness, most of the monotheistic religions teach that human sexuality is sinful, dirty, and strictly for procreation between married, heterosexual people. That goes against the very core of human sexual urges, and so the very religious simply feel conflicted & repressed because the Bible/Quran/Torah/Book of Mormon/whatever says NO BAD EVIL, but the brain (and other parts) says YES YES YES. Some are also a little jealous of all the sex they're not supposed to have, that others are getting. So they try to take it out on everyone else. That's my theory anyway. At the end of the day, the world's two oldest professions are prostitution and religion. Religion was, and is, the original way of enforcing law and order, and controlling people. Make them fear the punishment of an omnipresent, invisible being.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

It's nothing new. Pat Robertson has been obsessed with discussing the finer details of gay anal sex for years. I've always found it a bit suspicious.

But in all seriousness, most of the monotheistic religions teach that human sexuality is sinful, dirty, and strictly for procreation between married, heterosexual people. That goes against the very core of human sexual urges, and so the very religious simply feel conflicted & repressed because the Bible/Quran/Torah/Book of Mormon/whatever says NO BAD EVIL, but the brain (and other parts) says YES YES YES. Some are also a little jealous of all the sex they're not supposed to have, that others are getting. So they try to take it out on everyone else. That's my theory anyway. At the end of the day, the world's two oldest professions are prostitution and religion. Religion was, and is, the original way of enforcing law and order, and controlling people. Make them fear the punishment of an omnipresent, invisible being.

It is not an accident that both religion and sex include experiences of "ecstasy," and that each has led to "divine madness." They are natural rivals.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

I do not understand the terror and fury this is kicking up. What are we really talking about here? The average school won't have a single trans student in a decade.

What is driving the concern is actually pretty straightforward: a person can understand the emotional concern without agreeing with it.

The problem is the term "self-identify:" Have you seen Revenge of the Nerds? Imagine a 21st century version: "Hey guys, you want to watch some naked girls in the shower? All we have to do is put on a dress and walk over to the gym and say that 'today we self-identify as women' and under the law there's nothing they can do about it."

It seems reasonable to me that if I were the father of a teenage girl, I'd want to protect her from perverts. The problem is not at all about bona fide transgender people. The problem is that the current situation allows anyone who feels like it to claim they are transgender, whether they "actually" are or not. It is a situation with the potential for abuse.

and the solution is so very simple: just have a one-person bathroom set aside. No trans in the women's room, no trans in the men's room, trans in the single-user bathroom.


We have already had two incidents with weirdo creeps just hanging out all day in the women's bathroom at a local Target store. Not just going in to use it and leave, but loitering there for quite a while. No, I don't have a link handy as it was on the TV news about three weeks ago.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

most of the monotheistic religions teach that human sexuality is sinful, dirty, and strictly for procreation between married, heterosexual people

that is not at all what mainstream Catholicism nor Judaism teach. The teaching is that human sexuality is a wonderful, precious gift, to be revered and celebrated in a very special way. it is not to be squandered and dissipated in frivolity. there is nothing sinful and dirty about it, in fact, in Catholicism, it is elevated to the level of a sacrament, which is a special form of worship. Just like any sacrament, there is preparation ahead of time and a formal rite associated with it, and it is celebrated in a special way.

You might want to check out the book of the Bible called "The Song of Solomon."

maybe some of those fundamentalist teachings are different; I don't know about them.

 

[unofan]

All we have to do is put on a dress and walk over to the gym and say that 'today we self-identify as women' and under the law there's nothing they can do about it."

It seems reasonable to me that if I were the father of a teenage girl, I'd want to protect her from perverts. The problem is not at all about bona fide transgender people. The problem is that the current situation allows anyone who feels like it to claim they are transgender, whether they "actually" are or not. It is a situation with the potential for abuse.

That's not how the law works, that's not how being transgender works, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fear mongerer.

And it's already illegal to loiter and stalk others, whether you're straight or transgender, so that has nothing to do with anything other than you feel like talking about a pervert.

Posts like this are why I will avoid the literal political thread. Because your feelings or belief of what the law is should not carry the same weight as what the law actually says and does, and I don't have the willpower or the desire to avoid snark when a post simply calls for it in response.

 

[unofan]

that is not at all what mainstream Catholicism nor Judaism teach. The teaching is that human sexuality is a wonderful, precious gift, to be revered and celebrated in a very special way. it is not to be squandered and dissipated in frivolity. there is nothing sinful and dirty about it, in fact, in Catholicism, it is elevated to the level of a sacrament, which is a special form of worship. Just like any sacrament, there is preparation ahead of time and a formal rite associated with it, and it is celebrated in a special way.

You might want to check out the book of the Bible called "The Song of Solomon."

maybe some of those fundamentalist teachings are different; I don't know about them.

Sex is not a sacrament, and the fact that you think the sacrament of matrimony is solely or even primarily about sex is telling.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

that is not at all what mainstream Catholicism nor Judaism teach. The teaching is that human sexuality is a wonderful, precious gift, to be revered and celebrated in a very special way. it is not to be squandered and dissipated in frivolity. there is nothing sinful and dirty about it, in fact, in Catholicism, it is elevated to the level of a sacrament, which is a special form of worship. Just like any sacrament, there is preparation ahead of time and a formal rite associated with it, and it is celebrated in a special way.

You might want to check out the book of the Bible called "The Song of Solomon."

maybe some of those fundamentalist teachings are different; I don't know about them.

You'll have to excuse me, it's been over a decade since I blew the dust off my 864-page high school copy of The Catechism of the Catholic Church.