Can they get away with this? I hope people are paying attention and vote their asses OUT. This is infuriating. Fuck you, John McCain.

Senator McCain is gone! Hopes he's gone after Jan 17!!😡

I'm sick of these people damn near dying in office because they don't have the sense or good grace to bow out.

He was tied with his opponent for months and now he's pulled out a 15-point lead. I can't even being to fathom why that is.

The old crank is probably going to be a senator until he dies, unfortunately.

wanted him out!

for 2018-2020, than we have this time around. For now, with an evenly divided court, it just means we should be able to block any right-wing lawsuits from being decided in their favor.

has no right to nominate SC replacements under any circumstances

At the very least the Senate is required to put the President's SC nomination to a vote

Refusal to do so under any circumstances is abuse of powers vested in congress

I think the President could rightfully say advice and consent was requested but denied, so SHE may fill SC vacancies by executive order

I don't see the Senate having much of a leg to stand on

If Clinton does just that and the Senate appeals to the supreme court, with the court in a 4/4 deadlock, then executive order would stand and the Republicans would be screwed forever

Or the SC could refuse to hear the case and the Republicans would still be screwed forever

thanks for the response.

This guy is getting softer in the head than Trump, and that is saying something.

This GOP numbskull collection seems bent on destroying anything they oppose at any price.

McCain is Mr McGoo

to choose Scalia's replacement. McCain is looking to take a giant s**t on the will of the people.

I wondered at the time, when they refused to give Merrick a hearing, what they would do if a dem won the next election. They are the party of two-year-olds.

Republicans don't want to govern, they want to rule. ~Molly Ivins

My children were much more cooperative when they were two!

Oh, I do miss Molly Ivins.

Yeah, Molly & Ann Richards, both. Absolute jewels!

now that it appears that Hillary is all but certain to win. Now, they feel that the American public should decide who replaces Scalia............in 2020


WTF is it about Scalia that they admire so damned much? They can't handle the fact that he couldn't manage to hang on until another Republican gets elected? Well, too f***ing bad for them! Bush "won" in 2000 and 2004 and got to fill two vacancies and as much as I hated him and as much as I'm sure most Democrats disliked him, we all NEVER ONCE questioned his constitutional ability as President to nominate new Justices to replace the retired/deceased Justices. The thing that is even more galling about this whole affair is that Republicans have been sitting on their hands SINCE FEBRUARY so as to deprive President Obama, who was duly elected (twice), of his ability to fill the vacancy despite having nearly a year left in his term. Garland could have easily been confirmed by now if the GOP Senate had not been playing these stupid games!

half Senate... At very least it's anti-democratic and they've been getting away w/ it f/ >7.5 years.

slogan. It's an empty one, any way.

But didn't McCain just admit that the BS the GOP was spewing about waiting for the next president to nominate a new justice was a lie?

"like hell we'll do our constitutionally mandated jobs."

Garland is an older moderate. It makes every sense for Republicans to lame duck him in. The Harvard Business Review has the most lucid analysis of the situation. Their take? Not gonna happen because they can't help themselves.

Unfortunately, if recent history is any guide, Republicans may actually relish the thought of dragging out the Supreme Court confirmation process into Clinton’s first term. If so, Republicans would prefer to continue blocking Garland’s nomination even after a Clinton win.

Obama will most certainly pull the nomination of Garland the first minute he can. He's an idiot if he doesn't. Fuck them. They had the chance to approve a moderate and didn't.

but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire."

I found a store selling red Swinglines (which they didn't make until after the movie) on clearance for $3 so I bought like 8 of them. They do work really nicely.

At least it is of Trump loses.

if the Republican wins

When in doubt, just put BENGHAZI in all caps.

Is that your new slogan, McCain? Fuck the country, right?

past 12 it's been proudly shouted. And they have the gall to claim they're the patriotic party. Fkn hypocrites.

I guess it just goes to show how repeating the same lie over and over can fool a lot of people. Or is it misinterpreting the meaning of a word. Some of both, I guess.

Tho Walter Winchell used it to defend Josephy McCarthy, I remember well the conservatives spouting "My country, love it or leave it" in 60s. They conveniently ignored the rest which (tho I cannot find actual original quote/poem/whatever) continued in vein of improving the country if one doesn't agree w/ its direction.


HuffPost did nice article on "ALIOLI"
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1377023

The GOP have no respect for the constitution. I guess they feel they can refuse to confirm judicial appointments and continue the gridlock indefinitely. This is a terrible situation.

I hope us Californians get to help rest some more by taking a couple more house seats from them over here. They just seem so bat-crap crazy and unreasonable. In this state, they seem to be getting more of what they have been trying to dish out to rest of us and the karma is palpable

And maybe maybe the House as well as the Senate.

there may be a shooting revolution

Who owns the guns? Are you jonesing for a civil war like the one in Syria?

Very much for McCain. Never will.

I thank him for his service to our country, but he's an old scumbag.

I do hope that the Democrats can get a Dem Senate so his old guy on the lawn vote will be mute one.

leave McCain pissin' in the wind

need to win back the Senate AND the House.

Will you do the right thing if you win control of the senate and disallow filibusters against any judicial nominee? This is a stark necessity, for the sake of our country, do the right thing. For my and my family's part, we will vote straight dem to help this effort.

Edited to remove typo

That will be the test. I wouldn't go nuclear, but the party in charge gets to set the rules and the Democrats need to put something in place to prevent the Republicans from gumming up the works. If the Democrats do win the Senate, at minimum they need to make the Republicans vocally block the nominee so that everyone knows who is subverting the will of the people. I would opt as you said, for eliminating the filibuster against appointments.

... once and for all. Put these babies back in the cry room where they belong.

============

since it seems that Trump won't win. Now, it will be the NEXT President in 2020 who will get to choose the next SCOTUS Justice to replace Scalia (and possibly others).


I honestly don't know how they can say this sort of craziness with a straight face. And I am more glad than ever that McCain never (and will never) be POTUS.

They won't get as far with "I can't have it? Burn it down!" as they clearly think they will. That would destroy them, House and Senate, in 2018.

he retired. Time to go John.

Frankly, I don't know why President Obama hasn't done a recess appointment already.

Unless I'm mistaken, the appointment would last until the end of the next session, in which case, if they haven't done a vote to either accept or reject, then Obama could keep the recess appointment going indefinitely until they do?

....they weren't in session. I forget how they do it, but I suspect they have at least one Senator in Washington at all times.

This should not be written off as "a procedural issue" but as a challenge to validity of of the Constitution itself.

One of the three branches of government has declared a coup d'é·tat over the other two.

#vote 2016
#GOTV

.....he fought for and spent years in a Vietnam prison for?

It has varied from as low as 5 to 9. No doubt the Republicans will milk this fact. And all they have to do now is either

1. Wait for one of the more liberal justices to retire or die and they'll have their majority back

2. Wait for the MSM and hate radio to pave the way for another Republican President, and then appoint the 9th themselves (which the high road Democrats will swiftly rubber stamp)

3. Just leave it as is. It works well if some Red state lower court rules in favor of the right wing. Because if there is a 4 - 4 vote, the lower court's decision is upheld.

4. And of course, last but not least, even if they feel pressured to approve of a Hillary appointee, I can see them appointing a 10th if they get in the WH next and there are no retirements. No law against it.

on his earlier remarks about future Clinton nominees and noted he’d “vote for or against that individual based on their qualification,” according to Talking Points Memo.


Whatever. It looks like he's up 16 points. Shame it's not closer or I might throw some money at his challenger :/

even a lot of republicans are pretty sick of the do-nothing congress, i think

People bitch about how Congress sucks yet they put the same losers back in office again and again and again and again. Ugh.

Before that, actually.

Is his seat in jeopardy?

Not that THAT matters much, boy if it did!

If we get the Senate and House back, we should start impeachment proceedings on all members who refuse to bring the judges to a vote.

So we have no complete Supreme Court until you get a Repuke President? That's carrying it too far. They already were with Obama's appointment. SOBs deserve to lose for that all alone.

... a majority in Congress.

Effing a-holes!!

He is a hack in the now same mold as the rest of the rotten Republican Party.

What happened to this guy? I used to somewhat admire him. But he has sunk to new levels of scuzzyness.

that last BS regulation that enables the opposition to "BLOCK" SOTUS nominees. Use the darn nuclear option. Most people wanted Reid to do that when he got rid of most of it. I think the time has come. THAT would chop the legs off McCain and his comrads who are so ready to obstruct for ANOTHER 4 YEARS!

The Koch brothers have created a ground game where Donald Trump has failed, not to elect Trump but to elect all those Republican senators who won't dump him. See, they're too pure to sully their hands with him, but not so to elect his enablers.

http://www.dailykos.com/

We must take the Senate back.

Sore losers, liars, and frauds.

Their big fear supposedly is Clinton Supreme Court nominees
McCain just told them that isn't anything to worry about

He sounds like someone badly in need of retirement asap, in fact.

Not to mention a nap.

Fitzpatrick should be hammering this in the media

“I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.”

"Senator McCain believes you can only judge people by their record and Hillary Clinton has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees,” McCain spokesman Rachael Dean told TPM in a statement. “That being said, Senator McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career."

From what I’ve seen of his record, he is too far left. They’re portraying him as a moderate, but I’ve seen a couple, three decisions of his I do not agree with.

Maybe we should start calling John McCain the upside down senator?

It's getting more and more difficult to keep up with the flip flops.

When Merrick B. Garland was nominated to be a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 he was confirmed by a vote of 76-23.

Seven of the Republicans who voted to confirm Garland are still in the senate.

Among them is McCain.