2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: The clip of Hillary laughing with a Repug about bombing Iran deserves its own thread. [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)problem. That it seems to have been for you says a lot. Now, to make the reply I did not want to waste time making, in case you meant something else/
The SCOTUS is no longer a no-fail shibboleth. We had New Democrat President Clinton appointing a corporatist like Breyer and New Democrat President Obama appointing Kagan and also considering nominating a Republican or, the next thing to a Republican, IMO, Cass Sunstein. (Breyer and Kagan both joined the Republicans in invalidating a portion of ACA, rather arbitrarily, IMO.)
http://www.salon.com/2010/03/26/court_3/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=863294.
On the other hand, two of the most liberal Justices in the entire history of the SCOTUS were Warren and Stevens, nominated by Eisenhower and Ford, respectively. Warren had made his national political bones as AG of California, implementing internment of the Japanese and, to a much lesser extent, Germans and Italians. Kennedy, nominated by Reagan, has a number of times crossed over to vote with the Justices nominated by Democrats, including in the gay rights/equal marriage cases. On those, he has seemed a lot less shaky than Kagan, who before Obama nominated her, had stated flat out that there was no constitutional right to equal marriage.
So, it appears New Democrats are not necessarily reliable when it comes to nominating Justices likely to make liberal decisions and not even necessarily reliable when it comes to nominating Democratic Justices. On the other hand, it seems sitting on the SCOTUS bench can change Justices as it did Warren and Stevens. If New Democrats and DINOs want to keep using the SCOTUS to scare liberals into voting LOTE, they need to stop considering Republicans and corporatist DINOs as SCOTUS nominees.
However, no one is advocating electing a Republican President because you confused SOTU and SCOTUS or for any other reason. This is a primary. We are choosing between one Democrat or the other. And, when it comes to nominating a Justice likely to decide as I hope, New Democrats have proven unreliable. And that is another reason why Sanders, not Clinton, is my primary candidate. As discussed elsewhere, fewer Republicans, Indies and Democrats who flat out hate Sanders is another, as it portends a better shot in the general. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=878212
ETA: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=853599 (SCOTUS POTUS).