3903

Fuck that guy anyway, and fuck DJT Jr too.

3904

It’d be interesting if this makes Manchin lose.

3905




I believe Wray is already coincidentally scheduled to appear before the Senate or SJC next week, so I wonder if there will be any questions about the FBI instructions per this story.

3906

Former FBI agent explains the difference:

3907

This WH has already shown that they don’t care so much what is actually found in background checks, just whether things may get out later and embarrass them. And not even much that.

3908

But in common law the writ of scire facias was available to revoke tenure. There was also no debate about whether Congress had the power to completely refuse advice and consent (or what that would mean for the nomination) until McConnell did it. So this is the kind of thing I’m talking about - winding yourself up to convince yourself you can’t do a thing when the other guys just go ahead and do it and wait for someone to force them to do otherwise.

The point is about the kind of strong, effective leadership that actually gets everyone pulling in the same direction. You won’t win every time but you will win much more often than these free-for-all shitshows. And when you do win, win big.

Pack the court hard, not lightly - adding 2 justices isn’t a measured response, so just go ahead and add 9 or 30, then rewrite the rules so no one can pack the court again later. Put term limits on then see who can find jurisdiction to challenge your interpretation. Are the Supremes gonna sue and hear the case themselves? Make sure to stoke the fires and get the base on board first, though.

Even if they come back and replace the court that’s better than a 30 year conservative majority - a court remade every time control of the government shifts would serve better anyway. I mean “make good laws and win elections” is a far worse idea because you can’t win every election and you can’t control the other guy’s laws.

Or ignore these things and play hardball elsewhere - DC and PR, seven CAs, subpoena every single member of Congress who voted with Trump.

3909

If this is true (and I think it is) the last week was a spectacle of journalistic malpractice as I don’t recall seeing a single article, report or post stating this. It’s actually a crucial piece of information. I do recall the press reporting that the FBI background check had been reopened but the fact that this was an administrative procedure not a criminal investigation, and the fact that the “customer” could legally direct what to do, are incredibly important.

The press reported an “investigation” and most people assumed there would be an actual investigation looking for wrongdoing and/or confirming/contradicting the accusations. I assumed, probably based on reading too many Cold War novels as a youngster, that there would be a wide ranging investigation into whether there was anything “compromising” related to these accusations (this would include looking into the Ramirez and Swertnick allegations as well as the drinking issues). And yet that’s not the actual legal/administrative action which took place. What took place was an administrative inquiry into the allegations Ms. Ford testified to (this is, I assume, why she wasn’t interviewed).

So the entire way this was presented was a failure on the part of the media. And either Jeff Flake got rolled or this was all just pure camouflage the whole time.

There is a tiny silver lining: if Ms. Rangappa is correct, then Yglesias is wrong that we have definitive proof that the FBI is compromised by Trump. The FBI may well be Trump’s toady, but if this was just an administrative service the FBI provides to branches of government, then this wasn’t slam dunk evidence that the FBI is owned lock stock and barrel by Trump.

In the small picture, this is yet another example not of media bias but of media laziness and/or incompetence. It would have been really great to have known that the so-called investigation was just a customer service for Mr. Trump. That would have been nice to know. I mean, I know the cynical among us figured that was true, but knowing and suspecting are two different things. Feh.

In the big picture, the real problem from the last week from a liberal POV is that Dr. Ford’s testimony gave us hope that Kavanaugh could actually be stopped, when the harsh political reality was that the GOP had the votes the entire damn time. Dashed hopes suck.

3910

I think it was reported, but what people wanted was for the WH to put no limits on the investigation, which they ignored and obviously narrowed the focus of what was being investigated. And people like her and some others aren’t saying it isn’t bullshit what happened, just that the FBI isn’t now compromised.

3911

More specifically, Trump put out a public tweet stating the investigation was unlimited, when in fact they gave them specific limits which were never changed.

3912

As she or Josh Campbell pointed out, there will most certainly be documentation on the FBI side of how they were constrained, and a Democratic House should be able to get access to those documents.

3913

Seven Californias?

3914

Per Wikipedia that word doesn’t mean what you think it means:

“In English law, a writ of scire facias (Latin, meaning literally “make known”) was a writ founded upon some judicial record directing the sheriff to make the record known to a specified party, and requiring the defendant to show cause why the party bringing the writ should not be able to cite that record in his own interest, or why, in the case of letters patent and grants, the patent or grant should not be annulled and vacated.”

I believe the concept under English common law that you are thinking of to revoke tenure is impeachment, and yes that is allowed under the Constitution but that’s implicitly a finding of bad behavior.

Keep in mind, I do in fact believe the Dems should play maximum hardball, with the only limits being basic human rights and the key foundations of democracy.

For example: I think the Dems can do several things if they get the Presidency, the House and the Senate in 2020. The Dems can do all of the following with the Presidency and simple majorities in the House and Senate:

In regard to the Supreme Court, they should definitely add Justices, at least 2, maybe 4 or 6. The number they should go for should be determined by the best political analysis of the real world impact of the size of the change on voters: if voters will tolerate a higher number, do it.

In regard to the Senate, the filibuster has to die on the first day or the Dems are beyond hope long term.

Also, we need to give Puerto Rico and DC both statehood.

In regards to voter suppression, we need to pass a very strong voter rights bill that makes it very easy to register and to vote (Motor Voter on steroids, plus federal funds for more polling places and vote by mail, plus anything else we can thin of.)

In regards to gerrymandering, we need to make political party a federally protected class for the purpose of voting and give the federal courts express power to intervene. Along with that, setting up a neutral Redistricting Board that the courts can use to swiftly draw new districts if necessary is a good idea.

There’s quite a bit more, but that’s off the top of my head.

I’m in favor of hardball but I also don’t believe the law is infinitely malleable to do what we want. That doesn’t mean I want to weakly self limit, but there are some boundaries, which are a lot further out than milquetoast Dem attitudes of prior decades.

3915
3916

Merrick Garland was not the first Supreme Court nominee who the Senate refused even to vote on. I believe that honor goes to John Crittenden, nominated by John Quincy Adams in 1828. There have been several since then.

3917

I believe all of the prior nominees who were not considered were “lame duck” nominees, nominated after their nominating President already lost an election.

For example, Crittendon was nominated on December 17, 1828 by John Quincy Adams, after Adams had already lost the election to Andrew Jackson in November 1828. The Senate delayed voting on him until Jackson could nominate. Jackson was inaugurated on March 4, 1829 and nominated a Justice on March 6, 1829.

Garland was nominated on March 16, 2016, 8 months before the election, and Gorsuch was not nominated until January 31, 2017.

So yes, Garland’s treatment was unprecedented.

3918

Also, on the issue of changing the size of the Supreme Court, the USSC started out with 6 members, then expanded to 7, then 8, then 9, then 10, then down to 7, then back up to 9, where it has been for 150 years. But it was changed multiple times as the size, geography and demographics of the country changed.

3919

The first is changing the Supreme Court from nine permanent justices to a rotating group of justices, similar to a panel on the court of appeals. Every judge on the federal court of appeals would also be appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court “panel” would be composed of nine justices, selected at random from the full pool of associate justices. Once selected, the justices would hear cases for only two weeks, before another set of judges would replace them.

We call our second approach the Balanced Court. On this proposal, the Supreme Court would have fifteen justices. Ten justices — five Republican and five Democratic — would be chosen through a political process much like our current system, and thus would be expected to vote in line with their party affiliation. The key to the proposal is that these politically appointed justices would need to unanimously pick five additional justices, drawn from the courts of appeals, to sit with them for a year. To ensure that the justices come to consensus, the Court would need to agree on all five additional justices or else it would be deemed not to have a quorum, and thus unable to hear cases.

3920

How dare she call rape threats bullying, what a snowflake!

3921

This is only sort of true, and becoming less true all the time. The tradition that even the King is subject to the law goes back to Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, and were part of what the Founders looked back to when writing the Constitution. They were just making explicit what was implicit in the English constitutional tradition.

And with the modern expansion of Judicial Review and the courts referring to and enforcing the European Convention on Human Rights we’re moving closer and closer to the US model anyway.

3922

This part means that it was used to revoke offices, which are bestowed by letters patent. It is a separate procedure from impeachment because it was a suit that could be brought by a citizen, not only by the legislature.