or both.

I think Trump is going to lose. But that doesn't make me right. Reagan was this far behind Jimmy Carter in 1980 and I thought nobody sane would elect Reagan.

This isn't 1980. Clinton is not an incumbant and the economy is not in the tank, and Trump does not come off as a sincere patriot to the people who switch. But I do not predict the future. (Except I am winning a bet placed last October that Trump would get the nomination. Even then I knew the Republicans will fall for his crap.)

I think it's a pretty safe bet. The only wrinkle would be if Senate Democrats decide to deny cloture to allow Clinton to make a more progressive nomination and deny the Republicans a get out of jail free card before they surrender the majority.

ever, and I think that it is unlikely that a Democrat would withdraw the nomination. There is a remote chance that Clinton would not renew it, but I doubt it.

would be a considerable improvement.

He's too old, and I don't want my children to be where I am today 20 years down the road.

him for this reason, even if it were not public. Clinton is older than that, and Obama sent him up this hill in the first place. While Clinton probably wants someone with a proven civil rights record, she is liberal to centrist, and isn't going to start an term by pulling left. That tends to be towards the end of the term. I'm all for someone younger and more liberal too, I'm just second guessing what they might do down the road.

to renominate Garland. She will have a free hand.

I think the most likely outcome is that Garland is confirmed in the lame duck, I was just musing about the historic irony if Democrats were frustrate them by denying cloture to push the vacancy into January.

as have the mainstream Democrats for the past 80 years. I'd be surprised if she doesn't stick with Garland as he has been a team player.

It also wouldn't surprise me to see Obama publicly and privately encourage her to nominate her own choice should the vacancy remain past Inauguration Day.

sacrificial lamb. And he also has spent a career doing the grown up thing. He's also more conservative than Clinton, which explains the pick in the first place. Not who I would have nominated, but I can appreciate it as a masterful stroke of politics.

One of the things that activists have been disappointed in is that the elected democrats have rarely dished out payback to the republicans for their shitheel attitude and actions. It pisses me off, and the people further to my left (and there are a lot of them) seem steamed about it too. But my own personal desires aren't necessarily good government or good politics. I disagree on a number of things and go along with them.

....is to watch the GOP tie themselves in knots because Cool Hand Obama is messing with their heads. Any way you look at it they lose.