Scalia's replacement

[Juvenal]

So, we appear to have a new nominee...

At this point, I'm comfortable saying what I've been thinking all along. This, for Republicans, will be a much more acceptable candidate than any nominee from a future President Clinton, or Sanders though there's not much chance of that.

[Juvenal]

An honorable ...
A unanimous ...

The choice is based on the phonetics.

[rogue06]

Much of that was based on his decisions on the appellate court, as best I recall. In any case, the first question now is whether Garland will even be considered.

It was largely based on a what could only be described as a hysterical, over-the-top speech given by Ted Kennedy

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy ... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

Later, many critics would agree with Bork that "not a line in that speech that was accurate," including the relatively liberal magazine/newspaper The Economist, which simply shrugged it off saying "it worked" (reminiscent of Harry Reid's smirking response about lying about Romney not paying any taxes for a decade -- "They can call it whatever they want. Romney didn't win did he?")

[Juvenal]

Obama Chooses Merrick Garland for Supreme Court

In choosing Judge Garland, a well-known moderate who has drawn bipartisan support over decades, Mr. Obama was essentially daring Republicans to press their election-year confirmation fight over a judge many of them have publicly praised and who would be difficult for them to reject [...]

This, for Republicans, will be a much more acceptable candidate than any nominee from a future President Clinton, or Sanders though there's not much chance of that.

particularly if a Democrat were to win the November presidential election and they faced the prospect of a more liberal nominee in 2017.

Well, that's some swift confirmation.

The live feed of Gerrick's nomination was worth watching. He's got something of a bullet-proof history, including a politically protracted nomination to the DC court. I expected the nominee would be a consensus pick, and wasn't disappointed. But more than that, there's a clear focus on healing the nomination process in the president's remarks. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, but I'll go out on a limb for this one.

The Senate will confirm Garland.

[seer]

The Senate will confirm Garland.

If you think the base is peed off now just let them confirm this guy:

But Garland has a long record, and, among other things, it leads to the conclusion that he would vote to reverse one of Justice Scalia’s most important opinions, D.C. vs. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms. Back in 2007, Judge Garland voted to undo a D.C. Circuit court decision striking down one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. The liberal District of Columbia government had passed a ban on individual handgun possession, which even prohibited guns kept in one’s own house for self-defense. A three-judge panel struck down the ban, but Judge Garland wanted to reconsider that ruling. He voted with Judge David Tatel, one of the most liberal judges on that court. As Dave Kopel observed at the time, the “[t]he Tatel and Garland votes were no surprise, since they had earlier signaled their strong hostility to gun owner rights” in a previous case. Had Garland and Tatel won that vote, there’s a good chance that the Supreme Court wouldn’t have had a chance to protect the individual right to bear arms for several more years.

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-...errick-garland

[Bill the Cat]

Obama Chooses Merrick Garland for Supreme Court

Source: http://www.bustle.com/articles/148276-is-merrick-garland-pro-choice-his-abortion-stance-is-cloudy

"Because the D.C. Circuit's caseload is dominated by regulatory challenges, few of the cases in which Judge Garland participated involve hot-button social issues like abortion or the death penalty." USA Today's Richard Wolf echoed that same sentiment on Wednesday, noting that the nature of cases that Garland faced didn't offer significant insight into his views on abortion. "During 19 years at the D.C. Circuit, Garland has managed to keep a low profile. The court's largely administrative docket has left him without known positions on issues such as abortion or the death penalty," he wrote.

© Copyright Original Source

[Juvenal]

It was largely based on a what could only be described as a hysterical, over-the-top speech given by Ted Kennedy

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy ... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

Later, many critics would agree with Bork that "not a line in that speech that was accurate," including the relatively liberal magazine/newspaper The Economist, which simply shrugged it off saying "it worked" (reminiscent of Harry Reid's smirking response about lying about Romney not paying any taxes for a decade -- "They can call it whatever they want. Romney didn't win did he?")

That citation is from the Economist's obituary, A hell of a senator.

At his best, Mr Kennedy was a fine orator. Less than an hour after President Reagan nominated Robert Bork, a fierce conservative, to the Supreme Court, he was skewering him on the Senate floor. “Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution…and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens,” he thundered. “There was not a line in that speech that was accurate,” wailed Judge Bork afterwards. He was right. But it worked.

Even at first glance, it's hard to credit the idea that it was wholly inaccurate. Bork's supposed opposition to Roe was shared across the pro-choice/life divide. Roe's repeal would arguably have led to the return of back-alley abortions. We already live in a country where parents can choose to prevent their children from learning about evolution. The rhetoric was surely over the top, but outside an obituary, there's no good reason to credit one speech at the beginning of the nomination process with determining the outcome. Ted had a real way with words, but he wasn't that good.

This was an agonizing vote for many senators. Three votes were uncommitted that morning. One was the Virginia Republican, John Warner.

Bork’s Nomination Is Rejected, 58-42; Reagan ’Saddened’

Senator Warner, who once served as a law clerk for a former chief judge on the court where Mr. Bork now sits, said that he wanted to support the nominee. However, he said: ''I searched the record. I looked at this distinguished jurist, and I cannot find in him the record of compassion, of sensitivity and understanding of the pleas of the people to enable him to sit on the highest Court of the land.''

Reagan's comparison of the senators to a lynch mob, and his later promise to nominate a candidate just as divisive, received bi-partisan rebukes. The nomination process wasn't merely nasty, it was nastier than it had to be.

After the vote, Senator Biden said that although ''I enjoy winning,'' this particular victory was ''less enjoyable than others, because we are talking about a man who had to sit home and listen to this, a fine man who just had a view of the Constitution that is out of touch with the 1980's and 1990's.''

Part of me would like to see a return to the balance skewed by the nominations of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts, even if it means continuing the modern tradition of ideological picks. But I think it's more important to de-politicize the process, even if that means incremental movements toward the center by the choice of centrist nominees.

[Juvenal]

I'll let you find your own way to the door.

____

Guys and gals, partisan posting, such as seer's last post, is okay. Attacking other posters is not.

The rules:

1. Play nice.
2. See rule 1.

[rogue06]

Yup, Kennedy lied and The Economist agreed that Bork "was right" when he complained that "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate" afterwards, "but it worked" as the magazine/newspaper concluded.

And if being against abortion is some sort of deal breaker in spite of being unanimously approved to the U.S. Court of Appeals by the Senate a few years earlier, then obviously Merrick Garland opposition to firearm ownership (a right expressly mentioned in the Constitution rather than concocted) must automatically disqualify especially since heo wasn't even close to being unanimously confirmed to the U.S. Circuit Court (he was confirmed by a 76-23 vote).

Further, the whole "back alley abortion" myth was exposed as being mostly a hoax a decade before the Bork nomination by the co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), Bernard N. Nathanson, when he repented his pro-abortion views after the advent of ultrasound technology.

[One Bad Pig]

Further, the whole "back alley abortion" myth was exposed as being mostly a hoax a decade before the Bork nomination by the co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), Bernard N. Nathanson, when he repented his pro-abortion views after the advent of ultrasound technology.

If you want horrific, read up on ancient Roman abortion practices sometime. It was typically done at the behest of the husband, and the woman often died along with the fetus.

[Juvenal]

Obama can appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if the Senate does nothing

It is altogether proper to view a decision by the Senate not to act as a waiver of its right to provide advice and consent. A waiver is an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege. As the Supreme Court has said, “ ‘No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right,’ or a right of any other sort, ‘may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.’ ”

It is in full accord with traditional notions of waiver to say that the Senate, having been given a reasonable opportunity to provide advice and consent to the president with respect to the nomination of Garland, and having failed to do so, can fairly be deemed to have waived its right.

I don't see any reasonable chance that Obama would take advantage of this, but I do think it would be highly instructive if he floated this as a trial balloon. The system of checks and balances, by rights, should provide a procedure to address the failure of a branch of government to fulfill its constitutional duties.

[rogue06]

I suspect the Senate will take it up if Hillary wins in November since Obama recently said he won't withdraw the nomination. They'll correctly assume he will be better than anyone she nominates. In that case it will be the Democrats who will block the process.

Politics. Ain't it wonderful.