> Him being a trump nominee makes me suspicious, but also sad that that is the effect and that papers need to list who nominated a judge.
They don't, they just choose to do so. It's the same way pundits, authors, and broadcasters often get labeled "right-wing" or "conservative" while similarly left-wing ones don't get labeled. It's an editorial choice to call the reader's attention to it and imply relevance.
Beyond that, I think this is unique relative to the normal "bully pulpit" pressure in that:
* It's being used in order to suppress speech and opposition to the administration's policies, and
* It was being done in secret, not exposed until later, and has otherwise shown no signs of stopping
That makes it a bit different from, say, publicly pressuring lawmakers to reduce tariffs on sugar.
After the Senate ran a party-line unpresidented and unconstitutional multi-year campaign to block Obama's nominations from entering office without even a hearing, and then packed the courts with their own judges, it absolutely is relevant who appointed a judge.
In what way was that unconstitutional? It was democrats who changed the rules so they could block judges with a simple majority, not republicans. They did so assuming they’d be the ones in power.
"unprecedented", and you're right, up until the point of relevance.
It's only relevant to this story to imply that its causal, i.e., an impartial judge might not have made the ruling. Or to your point, "this wouldn't have happened if Obama's appointee were there." It's openly questioning the judge's ability to be neutral.
Regardless, though, I'm OK with it as long as it's labeled every time a Clinton, Obama, or Biden-appointed judge makes a decision that could be framed as political. That doesn't happen, though.
How is it unconstitutional? Article II Section 2 of the Constitution says that the President shall nominate, with the advice and consent of the Senate […] judges. The Senate did not consent, so Merrick Garland was not given a confirmation hearing.
> In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he's the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
The US isn’t an abstract ‘democracy’, it’s a functioning democracy with a specific set of rules.
I don’t agree with Mitch McConnell’s decision to refuse to have a hearing for Merrick Garland. I’m just saying it’s not against the Constitution as it is written. If the Obama Administration thought they had a legal right to force a hearing on Merrick Garland in the Senate, they would’ve filed a lawsuit to force the issue. The fact that they didn’t tells me that what McConnell and the GOP did wasn't illegal. It may have arguably been immoral and unethical, but it wasn’t illegal, and that was the point of my post that you responded to.
> The US isn’t an abstract ‘democracy’, it’s a functioning democracy with a specific set of rules.
Democracy isn't something you "are," democracy is something you do. Democracy is the sum of beliefs, actions, and understanding of the people in a "democratic" society.
So you cannot talk about us being a democracy without respect to the idea that democracy is a spectrum. You used the word "functioning" democracy which implies that democracy is a spectrum. In your spectrum you at least have [non-democracy, non-functioning democracy, functioning democracy, abstract democracy]. It is even more grey than that. Every 18 year old that doesn't vote means society is 1/N less democratic. Every time gerrymandering happens, society is 3 districts less democratic. Every time you get a politician who would choose party over country, or who chooses loyalty over values, you 1/5xx less democratic. Every time you get a supreme court judge who takes bribes, you are 1/9th less democratic.
I hope you find that persuasive.
You can say a judge has the authority to exercise discretion, and when they make a ruling they are justified by their position and the process that got them there, but that ignores the greater context of the reasoning behind their rulings. A judge that takes a bribe is ruling from a place of corruption. A judge that rules based on loyalty to a party rather than loyalty to a set of ideals is what separates cargo cult justice, from justice.
It is the ideals and adherence to them that separates cargo cult justice from justice, or cargo cult democracy from democracy.
"functioning" democracy is a judgement call on a spectrum. Your range of "functioning" is not the same as my range of "functioning." I do not believe we are functioning. I believe we are declining. We have supreme court judges openly taking bribes without consequences and a grid locked congress that is incapable of resolving the situation or creating consequences. We have a president who attempted a coup and he is being legally threatened for things that they think they can win, rather than the thing that is the most dangerous and criminal. He isn't being prosecuted for the coup, he's being prosecuted because of the coup. That should be terrifying.
The gridlock doesn't justify the lack of consequences.
> The fact that they didn’t tells me that what McConnell and the GOP did wasn't illegal. It may have arguably been immoral and unethical, but it wasn’t illegal, and that was the point of my post that you responded to.
Obama was the first black president and didn't rock the boat. The GOP declared war on America and the democratic party was and is in denial about it. You can be in shock or denial, or be confronted with a new situation you don't know how to handle and that explains what happened without the explanation being "it was justified because there was no action." Trump is clearly criminal and it's taken what, 6 years to see the potential for any consequences at all?
I don't find "they didn't do anything, so it's all justified" compelling.
> You can say a judge has the authority to exercise discretion, and when they make a ruling they are justified by their position and the process that got them there, but that ignores the greater context of the reasoning behind their rulings. A judge that takes a bribe is ruling from a place of corruption. A judge that rules based on loyalty to a party rather than loyalty to a set of ideals is what separates cargo cult justice, from justice.
I think the Federalist Society is one of the most dangerous organizations in the US. I’m with you on this.
> We have a president who attempted a coup and he is being legally threatened for things that they think they can win, rather than the thing that is the most dangerous and criminal. He isn't being prosecuted for the coup, he's being prosecuted because of the coup. That should be terrifying.
You’re preaching to the choir. It is terrifying, 1/6 was the scariest day in US history in my lifetime and I was alive for 9/11.
> Obama was the first black president and didn't rock the boat. The GOP declared war on America and the democratic party was and is in denial about it. You can be in shock or denial, or be confronted with a new situation you don't know how to handle and that explains what happened without the explanation being "it was justified because there was no action." Trump is clearly criminal and it's taken what, 6 years to see the potential for any consequences at all?
You keep saying ‘justified’ when all I was claiming is that it was ‘not illegal’. There’s a distinction there that you aren’t acknowledging. All I’m claiming is that it was within the letter of the law.
Again, the Obama administration was highly aware of how important getting Merrick Garland seated was, if they thought they had a legal right to force a hearing, they certainly would have. It was his last year in office, no re-election to worry about. They didn’t pursue legal remedies because what the GOP did was legal. It’s patronizing to Obama to claim he didn’t pursue it because he was the first black president.
> They don't, they just choose to do so. It's the same way pundits, authors, and broadcasters often get labeled "right-wing" or "conservative" while similarly left-wing ones don't get labeled.
Which is even weirder when we consider that being "right wing" is considered bad but "left wing" is not. When in reality during the 20th century, far left wing political organizations have been responsible for the deaths of 10's of millions more than far right parties. Being a Nazi is bad but being a Communist is far worse if history is any indicator. But you'd never know it by how much of the media frames things.
The left wing individuals responsible for the 10s of millions of deaths you're citing here sound more like Donald Trump in their rhetoric than any "leftist" rhetoric you'll find today in the USA. After all, it was Stalin who, like Trump, called the media the "enemy of the people"
“Stalin originated the concept ‘enemy of the people’. This term automatically made it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man be proven,” Khrushchev said in his secret address to the Communist party’s inner circle.
“It made possible the use of the cruellest repression, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations.”
That's how the right behaves today, which is why the right is dangerous. Communism vs. capitalism doesn't mean a thing if the person in charge is a deranged, power-hungry, narcissistic dictator.
The Trump administration lost any benefit of the doubt with their judicial appointments when they outraged the legal establishment (eg American Bar Association) by frequently ignoring the most qualified candidates for judicial appointments in favor of ideologically Republican ones.
Neither you or are the Bar Association have any right to tell the president who is most qualified for a role he appoints. Maybe you don’t like it or it’s “wrong,” but the Bar Association is a bunch bureaucrats not an arbiter of platonic truth or good.
Obviously it's his prerogative to choose who he and the Senate want, but then nobody should be outraged when the impartiality of his appointed judges is questioned.
edit: I'm rate-limited so can't reply, so here's my reply below:
It's a matter of degrees. For example, when Biden made it clear that he was hiring Ketanji Brown Jackson in part because she was a progressive black woman, she still had a massive amount of relevant experience and professional reputation. There's the understanding that while she obviously has a political bias, she's still a good judge. She had worked in district court, appeals court, she'd even worked as a public defender. She had an exceptionally long list of cases and legal opinions she could point to for her experience.
Meanwhile, contrast to Amy Coney Barrett, who had never been a judge before Trump appointed her into the Court of Appeals as a fast-track to the Supreme Court. She'd never tried a case all the way to verdict. She'd never argued an appeal. Her background was purely in academia.
All judges are picked for their political bias, that's how it works. Democrats pick judges who are more left leaning, conservatives pick justices that are more right leaning. To pretend it's just one way is incorrect.
...and before Trump both Republicans and Democrats when picking their nominees would pick a candidate that leaned their way and that the the other side could agree was well qualified and experienced enough to do the job well even if they didn't like the candidates politics.
In October, the American Bar Association rated Barrett "well qualified" for the Supreme Court opening, its highest rating.[115] The ABA confines its evaluation to the qualities of "integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament
The ABA rated her as well qualified. I'm doing to defer to them. I do understand your point that she had never had a judgeship before her appeals appointment in 2017, of which she served a little over 3 years in that position.
I think looking back at the alacrity with which she was appointed, the speed at which Roe was subsequently overturned, not to mention the stated rationale of the POTUS at the time, we can all be confident that the true reason for her appointment wasn't her qualifications as a jurist.
>we can all be confident that the true reason for her appointment wasn't her qualifications as a jurist.
Of course that's true. All judges are picked for their political bias. If you want to argue that she's unqualified, I refer you to the ABA assessment which disagrees.
My point is that discussing her qualifications is irrelevant. If she were there to be a judge, then her qualifications as a jurist might matter. But she's not there to be a judge, she's there to be a political operative. I know it, you know it, Senate Republicans know it, the plaintiffs pleading cases before her know it, and (most importantly) she knows it. So why the hell is anyone talking about her qualifications as a jurist? In her role on the Supreme Court, her only role that matters, she's a political operative, and she behaves as such. Accordingly, that's the only lens under which she should be analyzed. The ABA has nothing relevant to say about her.
Institutional ethics are a counter force to tyranny.
In a democracy a professional organization does have a right to check power as does every individual citizen.
Where do you think checks and balances come from? A two party state defeats a traditional notion of checks and balances. Our founding fathers warned against it.
They don't, they just choose to do so. It's the same way pundits, authors, and broadcasters often get labeled "right-wing" or "conservative" while similarly left-wing ones don't get labeled. It's an editorial choice to call the reader's attention to it and imply relevance.
Beyond that, I think this is unique relative to the normal "bully pulpit" pressure in that:
* It's being used in order to suppress speech and opposition to the administration's policies, and
* It was being done in secret, not exposed until later, and has otherwise shown no signs of stopping
That makes it a bit different from, say, publicly pressuring lawmakers to reduce tariffs on sugar.