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Any place I've worked at, if I had lounged in the doorway, flipping the top of my thong underwear and making passes at my boss, the only person who would have been accused of sexual harassment would be me.
Not condoning what happened, but Ms. Lewinsky knew exactly what she was doing.
She saved the evidence and regularly "clears the air" about what happened. I believe she wrote a Vanity Fair article not long ago where she maintained that her affair with Clinton was one between two consenting adults.
Why RWNs continue to natter about Monica being a young intern who was taken advantage of is just ridiculous.
Funny how the Clinton lovers (LWNs) pretend that Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones don't exist!?
(Not to mention the 'vacations' ole Bill took with a convicted pedophile)
If the GOP doesn't do the nomination process... NOBODY CARES... I know the Obama supporters and Obama himself has tried to turn up the heat with social media and regular news corporation being forced to report it for access to the WH... I really don't care, I think Obama really tried to make it a big deal with paying people to try to inflame the public... NOBODY CARES... try all you want... NOBODY CARES...
IMO, the senate is making a mistake. They should hold confirmation hearings. Do as the Dems did with Robert Bork. Make those hearings last for months, learn as much as possible about the candidate-and then reject him because he's one more liberal, anti-gun nutcase that Obama wants to pack the SC with. That much is their job. Part of the president's job is to compromise and be willing to nominate someone central enough to review cases according to the law, not ideology, and that can be acceptable to both sides.
And once President Trump takes office, he can submit Trey Gowdy to the SC. Or AG, either would be a good position.
If the Supreme Court was behaving as envisioned by The Founders, it would be able to function more or less as per usual, despite not having the optimum number of Justices (9). That being the case, the present GOP position of not appointing a new Supreme Court Justice until after the November election would at least be understandable. But after yesterdays punting of an important issue and the courts admission that they plan to defer opinion on the next two cases before them, and the further revelation that the Supreme Court does not envision being a functioning legal instrument for at least the next year, I think it is time to turn up the heat on Congress and force them to begin confirmation deliberations on President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland.
As I understand it, the SC is supposed to be without a partisan ideology. That is clearly not the case. Why are the open and consistent partisan divides tolerated? It is outrageous that a 9th Justice is so badly needed simply to be a tie-breaker! It should be beyond the pale that Republican politicians can say without censure that they will hold out for the opportunity to confirm a Conservative to the Supreme Court! There should not be Liberal or Conservative labels applied to sitting justices of the Supreme Court. So, two questions for the forum: 1. Should we accept that we will be without a functioning Supreme Court for at least the next year? 2. Should Supreme Court justices be able to advertise their partisan bias and consistently make decisions that align with their expressed partisan ideology?
" and force them to begin confirmation deliberations on President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland."
And just HOW do you plan to do that?
What "law" can you cite?
What provision of the Constitution can you cite?
Oh, I forgot, liberals ONLY like laws and the Constitution when it is convenient to them.
I not you do NOT say, Obama should nominate someone the Congress would accept or that he MEET with Congress and discuss nominees and come to a decision both can agree on.
Why is it that you ON:Y want repubs to "compromise" and NOT Obama?
Your entire post is exactly the point I am making. I don't see how another year of deliberation is going to help. Presently they are voting their ideology and time, new information, more debate, none of it sways them from their partisan course. If a Conservative Justice is nominated, the 5/4 decisions will continue indefinitely. Something needs to be done to break the culture of partisan divide on the SC. As I understand it, Garland is about as Centrist as they come. With him on the court there would be much more balance but it bothers me that he would be there to function as a tie-breaker for the inevitable 4/4 split of the other 8! Justices like Thomas that are openly Conservative should not be tolerated. I don't think the SC has any truly Liberal Justices, it has Centrist (Liberal) Justices and Conservative ones. Either they should all be Centrist OR their rulings should be assessed to determine partisan bias, if any. IOW a Conservative Justice should be required to prove through a review of their rulings that their actual decisions are being made without referral to their innate ideology.
" As I understand it, Garland is about as Centrist as they come"
Therein lies the problem.
He is NOT a Centrist.
He is anti 2nd Amendment.
"The "fact" that you really DON'T know much about him is why I don't take what you say serious.
"I don't think the SC has any truly Liberal Justices,"
I didn't think ANYBODY could be MORE liberal then Ginsburg or Sotomayor COULD be but, you have proven me wrong.
You based your opinions on an issues you DON'T know much about.
Congress as every right to do what their are doing. President Obama has every right to nominate whom ever he wants. I order to get past this then the president must nominate another candidate.
Obama has no history of having any leadership ability, so we have a stalemate. Until Obama realizes his responsibility in this we will be without a functioning Supreme court.
This is by design by the founding fathers. The system is working.
"Obama has no history of having any leadership ability" NOR a willing to COMPROMISE on ANYTHING.
The GOP is way out of line on this one. Their excuse is that the next Supreme Justice should be selected by a president the people have voted for. Excuse me? I guess the latest conspiracy theory is that President Obama was forced upon us by little green men from outer space. So now we have a Supreme Court which is nonfunctional to go along with a Congress which is nonfunctional. It is unacceptable to put the highest court in the land on the sidelines for almost a year, waiting on the election of a new president and then waiting on whoever she/he chooses to be confirmed by a dysfunctional Congress. The courts, especially the Supreme Court are supposed to be concerned that the laws of the land are upheld, not indulge in political cronyism. However, as we all know, nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps we should just cut straight to the chase and ask Goldman Sachs or the Koch brothers who they have in mind to fill the open Supreme Court position. I could call the US of today many things, but democracy would not be one of them.
"The GOP is way out of line on this one."
Show us where in the Constitution where you "think" they are out of line.
Its funny you whine about "waiting" now.
Where you when the dems "We don't need a budget" for what 6 years.
Or when ole harry reid sat on over 350 bills from the Senate.
"Waiting" for the dem controlled Senate to act was OK back then but, NOT OK now.
" we should just cut straight to the chase and ask Goldman Sachs or the Koch brothers..."
And NO mention of Soros or Stangly (not sure of the spelling.
"Obama has no history of having any leadership ability" NOR a willing to COMPROMISE on ANYTHING.
It is HIS way or NO way.
And if he doesn't get his way he'll stomp his feet and throw a temper tantrum. Maybe he should try holding his breath until the Senate confirms his pic
Part of congress's responsibilities include holding a hearing to determine if the Supreme Court Justice nomination determined by SCOTUS would be a good fit.
I have no problem with the Republican led congress not agreeing to Obama's nomination. I have a huge problem with them refusing to hold the hearing.
Republicans love to make it seem like the constitution is theirs, yet they ignore their constitutionally stated duty in order to wait for what they hope will be a Republican president in office so that they can get him to pick someone they like. And of course, they pretend it's some noble cause. It's not. It's corruption at it's finest.
Supreme Court justices should not have political bias. Obviously, it's impossible to completely eliminate it, but the question we need to ask is what role that is allowed to play in supreme court decisions. The fact is, the supreme court can either approve something that is clearly constitutionally affirmed or does not clearly violate anything in the constitution. That difference is when political ideology comes into play. The easiest example was their ruling on same sex marriage. 'Liberal judges' determined that the 14th amendment, which says no discrimination by the government is acceptable, would logically protect a homosexual couple's right to get a marriage license from their local court hose, and to say they cannot would be to effectively legalize government discrimination. On the opposite end, they argued that the 14th amendment makes no reference to sexual orientation, and even so, a homosexual still has the right to marry the opposite sex, so no rights are technically being violated. Along side that was the idea that marriage laws should go to the state, not the federal government.
I'll leave out religious arguments, since technically, that really shouldn't be a factor since separation of church and state would suggest all government employees would have to set aside their personal religious conviction if it interferes with their duty.
The thing is, neither side is technically wrong. The 14th amendment doesn't include sexual orientation, but it also makes it clear how it feels about government discrimination. Neither is objectively wrong. Theoretically, this is why we have the supreme court, to determine which side is right, but it does become hard to really say for sure who is right when it was a 5-4 decision. Nearly half of the justices thought it wasn't right to make the decision. The thing is, the only way a decision on this could really even be made would be political bias, since neither side actually said anything that wasn't technically true.
"Part of congress's responsibilities include holding a hearing..."
Show us where in the Constitution it says that.
And when the dems promised to the EXACT same thing NARY a word from the left in protest.
We can get into why the Senate should confirm Merrick Garland. However, IMO, there is a more a fundamental problem.
The Supreme Court as a body has been too willing to make 5-4 decisions. In a country that is so heavily polarized by politics as the USA is, five to 4 decisions are bad. They inevitably involve combinations of liberal justices vs. combinations of conservative justices. When one side wins, the other side will inevitably scream "its about politics".
I think that when the Supreme hears a case and takes a vote and the number is 5-4 that at least in controversial cases, they should hold the case for another year or term. Let the justices simmer over it for awhile. Allow for more debate within the court. At the end of the next term, they can vote again. If the vote tally is still the same, they can write an opinion. However, that extra year may also allow greater consensus to form over tough subjects.
The plain fact is that I think 5-4 Supreme Court decisions are one of the things that is polarizing this country and ripping its fabric. They are just too common these days and something needs to be done about them.
This system has worked for over a hundred years, we don't need to change anything. This is the way a democracy works, if something needs to be changed then pass an a amendment. They will eventually come around, same issues as with the budget process, this is just a very divisive government at this point in time and everything is blown out of proportion.
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