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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5760 on: April 04, 2017, 09:04:30 PM »
Regrets...they have a few.

The Root: "Life Comes at You Fast: Trump Voters Mad That Border Wall Would Put Their Homes on Mexican Side"
Quote

When you live under the rule of a dictator, even one that you helped vote into office, you can forget that you live in a dictatorship. I know it’s cool as long as all the weight of his office falls on people who don’t look like you, but what about when you get swept up in his bullshit? Well, now, there’s a problem.

The joy of unbiased evil is that at some point, everyone will get his turn.

TrumPutin supporters in Texas are now learning that in order for the emperor to build his dumb-ass wall that no sane person wants, they will have to be forced out of their homes for much less than their homes are worth—and for those who stay, based on the perimeters of said wall, they’ll be living in Mexico.

Seriously, you can’t make this shit up.

Based on a CNN special report, putting up a wall between Mexico and the United States means that many in the area who voted overwhelmingly in favor of President Vladimir TrumPutin will either lose their property or have parts of their property, if not all of it, completely moved to the Mexico side of the wall.

Raw Story notes that this isn’t the first run-in that those along the Texas border have had with the government over land. Around 10 years ago, one family’s farm was cut in half, with part in the U.S. and part in Mexico.

“I was very angry. I just kept saying, how can they do that? How is that possible in the United States that they can do this?” D’Ann Loop of Brownsville told CNN. “They put up a fence in front of our land and then keep us in here—lock us in. I didn’t understand. I was very—I was floored and flabbergasted.”

D’Ann Loop added that after losing in court, all of their property is now on the Mexico side of the border line.

“It left us no property on the U.S. side of the border wall, including my house,” she explained. “Everything was behind—on the Mexican side of the U.S. border fence.” Her husband, Ray Loop, said that in order to enter the U.S. side, his family is forced to go through a locked gate.

“You punch your code in or you come behind the border wall; there is a feeling of isolation,” Ray Loop explained.

The plan for now is to challenge TrumPutin’s administration in court. I guess now isn’t the time to point out that Hillary Clinton didn’t want a damn wall.

OK, you’re right. That was petty.
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StrikezOne

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5761 on: April 05, 2017, 03:54:59 PM »
When an investigation is not yet complete, one cannot say "there's no evidence, therefore it didn't happen." At least that's what most people with a modicum of common sense wouldn't do.

How about an investigation on US intelligence assets being used to try to influence the US elections? The Obama admin using US intelligence apparatus to spy on Trump for "dossiers" and then sharing it with the press or with Hillary. Multiple lines of evidence and actual testimony already.

__________

Then you keep quoting and sourcing CNN.

And then you go above that and link RAW STORY. You do know they are pretty much the equivalent to a leftys Brietbart  ? I cant wait for andrat to jump all over that.... maybe even call them nazis.

Quote

The plan for now is to challenge TrumPutin’s administration in court. I guess now isn’t the time to point out that Hillary Clinton didn’t want a damn wall.

OK, you’re right. That was petty.

She sure is a flip flopper.

Clinton - "I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in."

You do gotta pander and its always okay when a Democrat wants it.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2017, 04:00:14 PM by StrikezOne »
Dark Brandon quietly doing his job:

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5762 on: April 05, 2017, 04:02:42 PM »
News sources that value democracy are in the middle of the western democratic society.

Nazi (and Nazis are only right wing) news sources that value Nazi values are on the rim or even outside of the western democratic societies.

Is that so hard to understand?
Anti-social behaviours lack consideration for the well-being of others. Any types of conduct that violates basic rights (human rights is one of them) of another person. It can show as covert or overt hostility.

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StrikezOne

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5763 on: April 05, 2017, 04:54:25 PM »
News sources that value democracy are in the middle of the western democratic society.

This statement is subjective. who are you to decide what news source values democracy?

Anything right wing anything at all, even if its NOT extreme, is nazi and everything left wing, EXCEPT extreme, is democracy according to you? is that correct?

I NEVER have sourced breitbart or infowars. But one can make a legitimate argument their left counterparts are CNN, RAW story, washington post....

What dont you understand about CNN being proven to be biased with an agenda thats left wing?
Dark Brandon quietly doing his job:

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Highest Gas Prices Ever
Forced Vax on Millions of healthy Americans
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Loss of Energy Independence
High Taxes
High Crime
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Hunter Corruption/Treason
Vacations > Ohio Train Derailment, Maui Fires
WW3
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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5764 on: April 05, 2017, 05:00:03 PM »
News sources that value democracy are in the middle of the western democratic society.

Nazi (and Nazis are only right wing) news sources that value Nazi values are on the rim or even outside of the western democratic societies.

Is that so hard to understand?

Apparently, for some, it is.

Quote

In Donald Trump’s America, the mere act of reporting news unflattering to the president is held up as evidence of bias. Journalists are slandered as “enemies of the people.”

Facts that contradict Trump’s version of reality are dismissed as “fake news.” Reporters and their news organizations are “pathetic,” “very dishonest,” “failing,” and even, in one memorable turn of phrase, "a pile of garbage.”

Trump is, of course, not the first American president to whine about the news media or try to influence coverage. President George W. Bush saw the press as elitist and “slick.” President Obama’s press operation tried to exclude Fox News reporters from interviews, blocked many officials from talking to journalists and, most troubling, prosecuted more national security whistle-blowers and leakers than all previous presidents combined.

But Trump being Trump, he has escalated the traditionally adversarial relationship in demagogic and potentially dangerous ways....

This may seem like bizarre behavior from a man who consumes the news in print and on television so voraciously and who is in many ways a product of the media. He comes from reality TV, from talk radio with Howard Stern, from the gossip pages of the New York City tabloids, for whose columnists he was both a regular subject and a regular source.

But Trump’s strategy is pretty clear: By branding reporters as liars, he apparently hopes to discredit, disrupt or bully into silence anyone who challenges his version of reality. By undermining trust in news organizations and delegitimizing journalism and muddling the facts so that Americans no longer know who to believe, he can deny and distract and help push his administration’s far-fetched storyline.

It’s a cynical strategy, with some creepy overtones. For instance, when he calls journalists “enemies of the people,” Trump (whether he knows it or not) echoes Josef Stalin and other despots.

But it’s an effective strategy. Such attacks are politically expedient at a moment when trust in the news media is as low as it’s ever been, according to Gallup. And they’re especially resonant with Trump’s supporters, many of whom see journalists as part of the swamp that needs to be drained.

Of course, we’re not perfect. Some readers find news organizations too cynical; others say we’re too elitist. Some say we downplay important stories, or miss them altogether. Conservatives often perceive an unshakable liberal bias in the media (while critics on the left see big, corporate-owned media institutions like The Times as hopelessly centrist).

To do the best possible job, and to hold the confidence of the public in turbulent times, requires constant self-examination and evolution...Even if we are not faultless, the news media remain an essential component in the democratic process and should not be undermined by the president.

Some critics have argued that if Trump is going to treat the news media like the “opposition party” (a phrase his senior aide Steve Bannon has used), then journalists should start acting like opponents too. But that would be a mistake. The role of an institution like the Los Angeles Times (or the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or CNN) is to be independent and aggressive in pursuit of the truth — not to take sides. The editorial pages are the exception: Here we can and should express our opinions about Trump. But the news pages, which operate separately, should report intensively without prejudice, partiality or partisanship.

-- "Trump’s War on Journalism", by the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board (fourth in a series)

ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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StrikezOne

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5765 on: April 05, 2017, 05:24:25 PM »
Quote

Facts that contradict Trump’s version of reality are dismissed as “fake news.”

Facts that contradict a liberal’s version of reality are dismissed as “fake news.”

Works both ways.
Dark Brandon quietly doing his job:

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Highest Gas Prices Ever
Forced Vax on Millions of healthy Americans
Highest Mortgage rates in 15yrs
Most Illegal Border Crossings in US History
Loss of Energy Independence
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High Crime
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Nordstream 2 Pipeline
Hunter Corruption/Treason
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WW3
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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5766 on: April 05, 2017, 05:32:36 PM »
Although his security clearance (the highest possible) remains untouched. And it is very weird what he said his job was being there in the first place:
Quote

"Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration. I was put on to unsure that it was deoperationalized," Bannon said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. "General McMaster has returned the NSC to its proper function."


What a strange way of putting it, since:
Quote

When something is “operationalized,” it essentially means procedure is established to guide the operations of an organization in carrying out its responsibilities. One INTENDED effect is to prevent one person from doing things outside of a an organization’s responsibilities, possibly for political or even financial gain. Established procedure is to be followed, regardless of one’s personal feelings. This, of course, goes against the fascist, authoritarian mindset of the all powerful person, ALONE, deciding how to do things.

The mind blowing irony with this Bannon idiocy is that Susan Rice “operationalized” the NSC to help prevent the EXACT thing the right wing is accusing her of. Rice precisely followed procedure in performing her duties.

Or could this mean that he’s saying that it worked just fine under Rice and his job was to make it not work? Who knows?

The White House's "explanation" of this move raises more questions:

"Bannon was put on the Principals' Committee only as a check against then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Now that Flynn is gone, Bannon is no longer needed in that role, the official said."

"A check" against Flynn? Why? Why would you name Flynn to such an important role in the first place if you knew from jump that he needed "a check" to be put on him? Isn't that sort of an admission that you knew Flynn was "dirty" when you hired him?

Also, by saying that Flynn needed "a check" then that implies that the person being used to "check" him is "clean". But if that is so, why get rid of "the check"? Why is the WH chief advisor no longer on the Principals' Committee? (Not that a political appointee should even be on the National Security Council in the first place. Say what you want about Pres. G.W. Bush, even he had enough sense to know that Karl Rove should be nowhere near the NSC.)

Also, the timeline doesn't add up. Michael Flynn was fired on February 13th. Gen. McMaster appointed on Feb. 21st. It was more than a month later that Bannon booted from the Council. If they say Bannon wasn’t needed once McMaster came on board, what took them so long for this move?

It could be that this is an attempt to distract from what son-in-law Jared Kushner is doing. Or maybe this has son-in-law's fingerprints all over it. It'd probably be hard for the grandson of a Holocaust survivor to have to be working in close proximity to a person who has such strong anti-Semitic and white supremacist views. But then again it didn't stop him, his wife, or his wife's father to be working with such people in order to get to where they are today. "Compartmentalization", I think it's called.

This is not normal.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5767 on: April 05, 2017, 05:51:47 PM »
Via NPR:

National Security Council Principals Committee, Memo on Jan. 28, 2017: 
  • Secretary of State
  • Secretary of the Treasury
  • Secretary of Defense
  • Attorney-General
  • Secretary of Homeland Security
  • Chief of Staff to the President
  • Assistant to the President and Chief Strategist
  • National Security Advisor
  • Homeland Security Advisor

National Security Council Principals Committee, Memo on Apr. 4, 2017: 
  • Secretary of State
  • Secretary of the Treasury
  • Secretary of Defense
  • Attorney-General
  • Secretary of Homeland Security
  • Chief of Staff to the President
  • Assistant to the President and Chief Strategist
  • National Security Advisor
  • Homeland Security Advisor
  • Director of National Intelligence
  • Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
  • Representative of the United States to the United Nations
  • Secretary of Energy

Hmmm.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5768 on: April 05, 2017, 11:32:43 PM »
And apparently it needs higher education that is not available for some right wingers, that would allow the right wingers to read, understand and remember what discussion partisipants wrote and said.

I can't find other explanations or maybe it is a general lack of education when the disrespect takes place. Maybe it is a general learning resistance to right wingers (as could be seen with the extremist right Trumpel and his Nazi consultants).

Because otherwise I can't understand the disrespect and disregard to what you just wrote above (about other presidents or the self critics of jounalists) or to my previous answers showing left extremistic news sources (though German) as counterpart to right extremistic Nazi news sources. And generally what I wrote about news sources and democracy and center of democracy. Or right wingers extremists trying with mind fogging to declare their Nazi news sources as the "new center" of democracy.

It shouldn't be so hard to find and show real extremist communist left US news sources to the people but instead CNN is shown as example.

Extremely ridiculous.

News sources that value democracy are in the middle of the western democratic society.

Nazi (and Nazis are only right wing) news sources that value Nazi values are on the rim or even outside of the western democratic societies.

Is that so hard to understand?

Apparently, for some, it is.

Quote

In Donald Trump’s America, the mere act of reporting news unflattering to the president is held up as evidence of bias. Journalists are slandered as “enemies of the people.”

Facts that contradict Trump’s version of reality are dismissed as “fake news.” Reporters and their news organizations are “pathetic,” “very dishonest,” “failing,” and even, in one memorable turn of phrase, "a pile of garbage.”

Trump is, of course, not the first American president to whine about the news media or try to influence coverage. President George W. Bush saw the press as elitist and “slick.” President Obama’s press operation tried to exclude Fox News reporters from interviews, blocked many officials from talking to journalists and, most troubling, prosecuted more national security whistle-blowers and leakers than all previous presidents combined.

But Trump being Trump, he has escalated the traditionally adversarial relationship in demagogic and potentially dangerous ways....

This may seem like bizarre behavior from a man who consumes the news in print and on television so voraciously and who is in many ways a product of the media. He comes from reality TV, from talk radio with Howard Stern, from the gossip pages of the New York City tabloids, for whose columnists he was both a regular subject and a regular source.

But Trump’s strategy is pretty clear: By branding reporters as liars, he apparently hopes to discredit, disrupt or bully into silence anyone who challenges his version of reality. By undermining trust in news organizations and delegitimizing journalism and muddling the facts so that Americans no longer know who to believe, he can deny and distract and help push his administration’s far-fetched storyline.

It’s a cynical strategy, with some creepy overtones. For instance, when he calls journalists “enemies of the people,” Trump (whether he knows it or not) echoes Josef Stalin and other despots.

But it’s an effective strategy. Such attacks are politically expedient at a moment when trust in the news media is as low as it’s ever been, according to Gallup. And they’re especially resonant with Trump’s supporters, many of whom see journalists as part of the swamp that needs to be drained.

Of course, we’re not perfect. Some readers find news organizations too cynical; others say we’re too elitist. Some say we downplay important stories, or miss them altogether. Conservatives often perceive an unshakable liberal bias in the media (while critics on the left see big, corporate-owned media institutions like The Times as hopelessly centrist).

To do the best possible job, and to hold the confidence of the public in turbulent times, requires constant self-examination and evolution...Even if we are not faultless, the news media remain an essential component in the democratic process and should not be undermined by the president.

Some critics have argued that if Trump is going to treat the news media like the “opposition party” (a phrase his senior aide Steve Bannon has used), then journalists should start acting like opponents too. But that would be a mistake. The role of an institution like the Los Angeles Times (or the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or CNN) is to be independent and aggressive in pursuit of the truth — not to take sides. The editorial pages are the exception: Here we can and should express our opinions about Trump. But the news pages, which operate separately, should report intensively without prejudice, partiality or partisanship.

-- "Trump’s War on Journalism", by the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board (fourth in a series)

« Last Edit: April 06, 2017, 12:17:37 AM by andrat2000 »
Anti-social behaviours lack consideration for the well-being of others. Any types of conduct that violates basic rights (human rights is one of them) of another person. It can show as covert or overt hostility.

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StrikezOne

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5769 on: April 06, 2017, 01:43:16 AM »
I can see why certain users stopped posting here.

So much hypocrisy and unwillingless to even have constructive dialogue. Fallacy after fallacy. Ignore things that doesn't suit their narrative.

That's a lot of liberals. Don't even care about democracy as much as they try to claim. They only care about opinions that match their own.

And don't they have all the answers! But they can't even laugh at themselves.

Have fun with each other. I'm out of here.
Dark Brandon quietly doing his job:

Highest Inflation in 40yrs
Highest Gas Prices Ever
Forced Vax on Millions of healthy Americans
Highest Mortgage rates in 15yrs
Most Illegal Border Crossings in US History
Loss of Energy Independence
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High Crime
Afghanistan Disaster
Nordstream 2 Pipeline
Hunter Corruption/Treason
Vacations > Ohio Train Derailment, Maui Fires
WW3
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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5770 on: April 06, 2017, 03:27:14 PM »
Thank you very much, Sen. Harry "creator of the 'nuclear option'" Reid (D, NV).

Live by the sword, steal a SCOTUS seat by the sword.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5771 on: April 06, 2017, 03:32:46 PM »
Thank you very much, Sen. Harry "creator of the 'nuclear option'" Reid (D, NV).

Live by the sword, steal a SCOTUS seat by the sword.

How often the nuclear option was risen before and who did it.
Anti-social behaviours lack consideration for the well-being of others. Any types of conduct that violates basic rights (human rights is one of them) of another person. It can show as covert or overt hostility.

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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5772 on: April 06, 2017, 03:51:05 PM »
Yes, the Democrats created the "nuclear option", and the Republicans used it. At this point, it almost doesn't matter who created it. The "just get a simple majority instead of 60 votes" idea was a bad one on its face. Yes, Harry Reid & co. did it in the face of eight years of historic bull-headed obstructionism by the Republicans, but it increases partisanship and makes fighting for ground in the Senate to be much more brutal. It also incentivizes gerrymandering and other forms of voting suppression to ensure that the party in power retains or gains as many seats in the Senate as possible.

ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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TheZookie007

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5773 on: April 06, 2017, 10:33:55 PM »
NBC News: "U.S. Launches Missiles at Syrian Base After Chemical Weapons Attack"
Quote

The United States launched dozens of cruise missiles Thursday night at a Syrian airfield in response to what it believes was the Syrian government’s use of banned chemical weapons blamed for having killed at least 100 people on Tuesday, U.S. military officials told NBC News.

The U.S. military fired at least 50 Tomahawk missiles intended for a single target — Ash Sha’irat in Homs province in western Syria, the officials said.

That’s the airfield from which the United States believes the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fired the banned weapons.


checks calendar

Only 76 days in. Feels like forever. Remember all the times he claimed that Hillary Clinton was the warmonger? Or --
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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rtpoe

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Re: MERGED: The Politics Thread
« Reply #5774 on: April 06, 2017, 10:34:20 PM »
Unless the GOP figures out a way to change state borders, it's going to be impossible for them to keep the Senate through gerrymandering. Two senators per state....

Politico (yes, I know, because it's not FOX News or some other site that's blatantly pro-Trump or pro-Republican, it's FAKE NEWS and "librul media LOL"..... sigh. Give it a rest already....) has two very good and insightful essays on what "going nuclear" means in the grand scheme of things.

"RIP U.S. Senate, 1789-2017" by Matt Latimer:

"Let’s be clear: The so-called nuclear option being seriously contemplated by Republican leaders to eliminate the filibuster of Supreme Court nominations is a tactic of last resort, forced on them in a final acknowledgment that the Senate as we’d known it for decades, and as the founders envisioned it, is dead."

"Lastly, and in what is perhaps the cruelest insult to members of the “upper chamber,” the end of the filibuster would transform the Senate into simply a slightly more gilded version of the House. The Senate was envisioned as the more reasonable of the two chambers, where compromise and conciliation would be the order of the day. Because senators reflect a larger composition of their respective states and have longer terms of office, the idea was that there would be less of a need to engage in petty politics or respond to the whims of constituencies."

"When I first came to Washington, I worked as an aide in both chambers. There was no doubt where most staffers preferred to be."

"We’d hear Robert Byrd offer his long and famous soliloquies on the Constitution and even stop to listen sometimes. On occasion, you’d even see people like Hillary Clinton or Dianne Feinstein or Ted Kennedy working on legislation with conservatives like Jon Kyl or Orrin Hatch. Even pitched battles on the floor of the Senate or in the media between senators of different parties often came with a little knowing glance or a shrug. As if to say, “Yeah, we have to do this, but we’ll find a way to strike a deal.” "

"If the Senate proves no more workable than the House, if it now indulges in similar games of brinkmanship and silly antics to appeal to its base, what, pray tell, do we need the Senate for at all?"

"How Congress Used to Work" by Bruce Bartlett:

"Historically, major legislative initiatives were all multiyear exercises—Social Security, Medicare, welfare reform et al.—and that doesn’t even count the many years before the legislative process began, in which scholars and other policy entrepreneurs plowed the ground to get to the point where legislation was feasible."

"This sort of traditional legislating came to an end in 1994 when Republicans got control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1954. Republicans elected Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House and most believed that they owed him personally for having devised the strategy that led them to this unexpected outcome. After spending so long in the minority, Republicans had a large, pent-up demand for things they wanted to do as soon as they got control. But Gingrich had his own ideas. Chief among them was the dismantling of the traditional legislating process based on the committees. He was in too much of a hurry for hearings and markups on the things he wanted to do. Nor did he have any interest in being challenged by a bunch of “experts” telling him that his ideas wouldn’t work."

"During the Obama years, Republicans made no effort whatsoever to pass any of their initiatives. That would have required meeting some of the president’s demands, which were assumed to be unacceptable, regardless of what they were. All Republican legislative efforts went into one thing: stopping whatever Obama wanted to do, no matter the merit or the possibility they could get something for themselves with a small amount of compromise. To the GOP base, compromise equaled capitulation and therefore was forbidden."

"The problem is that the legislative machinery has atrophied from lack of use for so many years on the Republican side. Republicans have forgotten how to properly draft a bill, vet it, built coalitions, make deals and put a major piece of legislation across the finish line. The president can’t help because he knows nothing whatsoever about the legislative process, not to mention the larger policymaking process that includes lobbyists, trade associations, citizen groups, think tanks and the news media."

---

The whole point is that the Senate is supposed to be the Grand Deliberative Body that takes the time to work for a nationally acceptable compromise that will last. That's why they have staggered six-year terms, while the House gets churned up every two years. When you are giving someone a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the country, shouldn't that call for exactly that sort of collective judgment and consensus-building that was originally intended? If your candidate for that most serious of positions cannot earn the acceptance of two-thirds of the Senate - and therefore two-thirds of the states - shouldn't you try to find a better candidate instead of changing the rules?
rtpoe

The last fling of winter is over ...  The earth, the soil itself, has a dreaming quality about it.  It is warm now to the touch; it has come alive; it hides secrets that in a moment, in a little while, it will tell.
-  Donald Culross Peattie