Stupid question

[Bammer]

I readily admit I'm an ignorant SOB about a lot of political stuff.

Mods feel free to merge this after a while, I just didn't want to go digging through the POTUS or SCOTUS threads.

OK ...

Why wasn't Obama allowed to appoint a new judge before his term ended?

[lennytheweedwhacker]

antiquated jim crow laws that are still on the books

[4/5]

I readily admit I'm an ignorant SOB about a lot of political stuff.

Mods feel free to merge this after a while, I just didn't want to go digging through the POTUS or SCOTUS threads.

OK ...

Why wasn't Obama allowed to appoint a new judge before his term ended?

He nominated Garland, but the appointment requires Senate confirmation.

[wease]

All the POTUS can do is nominate a judge. It then falls upon congress to approve that person. The Republicans didn't want to have a judge appointed by Obama so they simply refused to have anything to do with his pick. It was as if he never proffered a name. They just chose to ignore it, hoping Trump (or another Republican) would win the election then that party would get to nominate someone and they could, presumably, get someone more i line with their idealogies.

[BurtReynolds]

.

[wease]

The system worked

Well, yes and no.

[Bammer]

Gracias. I thought I'd heard chatter that Obama could not appoint someone since it was so near the end of his term. God the two party system is so broke.

[Norah]

Gracias. I thought I'd heard chatter that Obama could not appoint someone since it was so near the end of his term. God the two party system is so broke.

The GOP tried to make it sound like there was precedent not to make appointments X amount of months away from the election. That was bullshit, it happens all the time.

[Green Habit]

In sum, the GOP wanted to go big or go home with Scalia's seat. They won big, and I don't blame them for that gamble, as they could have easily lost control of SCOTUS for a generation, and now could win it for a generation.

[B]

Green Habit likes it when politics played like a game and no one tries to honestly run society like responsible adults.

But, seriously, wease gave an accurate answer.

[Green Habit]

Green Habit likes it when politics played like a game and no one tries to honestly run society like responsible adults.

But, seriously, wease gave an accurate answer.

I wouldn't say that I "like" it, but it was fairly obvious what the path to retaining/gaining political power was going to be for the GOP. And I still contend that if Ginsburg or Stevens died in 2008, the Democratic Senate would have done the same thing--and should have, for their own sake.

[B]

I know. It's just the point you and I always disagree on. I don't have a solution. Our country will be a pile of shit until our leaders start behaving like adults, but when someone does that, everyone else is going to fuck them over, and we'll end up deeper down a shithole.

[Green Habit]

I know. It's just the point you and I always disagree on. I don't have a solution. Our country will be a pile of shit until our leaders start behaving like adults, but when someone does that, everyone else is going to fuck them over, and we'll end up deeper down a shithole.

What do you generally envision as politicians behaving like adults?

[B]

I know. It's just the point you and I always disagree on. I don't have a solution. Our country will be a pile of shit until our leaders start behaving like adults, but when someone does that, everyone else is going to fuck them over, and we'll end up deeper down a shithole.

What do you generally envision as politicians behaving like adults?

- When a President nominates a Supreme Court justice. You have hearings, make sure the American people hear you questioning the candidate hard, and vote on the justice.
- When you're elected w/ a minority of the popular vote, you tone down your ambitions and try to meet half the populace somewhere closer to the middle.
- When you lack a veto-proof majority, you pass 1 bill for eliminating the ACA, then when you fail, you grab a colleague and say, "hey, if can't eliminate it, can we try a couple of these tweaks that I thought up?"
- When your colleague stands up during a vote and says, "I'm sorry, I accidentally pressed the wrong button," you revote, you don't tell your colleague "tough shit" and then open your state to fracking by a single vote.

I'm sure I could think of some examples of times when Democrats have been dicks, but they aren't in my head right now.

[B]

I'm curious how this will play out, but my Republican Senator, Thom Tillis, is on the right track.

"Let’s be clear: the American people didn’t give the GOP a stamp of approval or a mandate to ram through an ideologically-driven, far-right agenda. If the election was a mandate for anything, it was for elected officials in both parties to break through the gridlock to finally start producing results...What the vast majority of Americans want now is for both parties to cast aside their petty partisan differences in order to deliver solutions that benefit the nation."