Posted on Feb 17, 2016
Political paralysis is the new normal: The GOP’s Scalia gamble may be suicidal, but it’s not...
742
0
6
0
0
0
According to numerous scholars who have weighed in since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia over the weekend, historical and constitutional precedent indicates that the president of the United States is elected for a four-year term, and does not stop being president until he or she, um, actually leaves office. That’s a hot take on a controversial topic, I know! It’s nearly as confusing as the question of who was president at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which Marco Rubio seems to think took place during some extended Bill Clinton prequel to “The Hangover,” while George W. Bush wore funny costumes and did non-alcoholic Jell-O shots and kept forgetting he had taken the oath of office.
But history’s bunk, as Henry Ford sorta, kinda said nearly a century ago. And so is reality, at least when it comes to politics in 2016, a year whose revolutionary strangeness demands a new descriptive term. “Postmodern” is way too old-fashioned, too ‘90s. Our politics are increasingly post-partisan, post-rational, post-factual and even post-political. Even the New York Times has noticed. In a story published Tuesday about the running battle over judicial appointments between the Obama administration and the Republican leadership of the Senate, reporter Charlie Savage wonderingly observed that “history is no longer a guide in a polarized Washington, where partisan warfare over judicial nominations has been escalating for more than a generation.”
But history’s bunk, as Henry Ford sorta, kinda said nearly a century ago. And so is reality, at least when it comes to politics in 2016, a year whose revolutionary strangeness demands a new descriptive term. “Postmodern” is way too old-fashioned, too ‘90s. Our politics are increasingly post-partisan, post-rational, post-factual and even post-political. Even the New York Times has noticed. In a story published Tuesday about the running battle over judicial appointments between the Obama administration and the Republican leadership of the Senate, reporter Charlie Savage wonderingly observed that “history is no longer a guide in a polarized Washington, where partisan warfare over judicial nominations has been escalating for more than a generation.”
Political paralysis is the new normal: The GOP’s Scalia gamble may be suicidal, but it’s not...
Posted from salon.comPosted in these groups: 
Election 2016
Election 2016
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 4
0
0
0
All's fair in love and (politics) war, right?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/269719-white-house-obama-regrets-his-filibuster-of-supreme-court-nominee
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/269719-white-house-obama-regrets-his-filibuster-of-supreme-court-nominee
White House: Obama 'regrets' his filibuster of Supreme Court nominee
Obama tried to stop the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito in 2006.
(0)
(0)
Capt Walter Miller
And yet Justice Alito is on the bench.
He wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
"Citizens United" ignored 100 years of precedent.
People like you don't deserve a Republic, and you probably can't keep it.
"Last week, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. speciously defended the Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case by arguing that the ruling, which allowed unlimited independent campaign spending by corporations and unions, was not really groundbreaking at all. In fact, he said, all it did was reaffirm that corporations have free speech rights and that, without such rights, newspapers would have lost the major press freedom rulings that allowed the publication of the Pentagon Papers and made it easier for newspapers to defend themselves against libel suits in New York Times v. Sullivan.
“The question is whether speech that goes to the very heart of government should be limited to certain preferred corporations; namely, media corporations,” he said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative group. “Surely the idea that the First Amendment protects only certain privileged voices should be disturbing to anybody who believes in free speech.”
But Justice Alito’s argument wrongly confuses the matter. It is not the corporate structure of media companies that makes them deserving of constitutional protection. It is their function — the vital role that the press plays in American democracy — that sets them apart. In Citizens United, by a 5-to-4 vote, the court ruled that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, in limiting the amount that organizations could spend, severely restricted First Amendment rights. The law’s purpose and effect, according to the court, was to keep unions and most corporations from conveying facts and opinions to the public, though it exempted media corporations.
But the majority got that backward. The point of the law was to protect the news media’s freedom of speech and not the legal form that they happened to be organized under. While corporations make enormous contributions to society, they “are not actually members of it,” Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent. When the framers “constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind,” he noted, not that of corporations."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/opinion/justice-alito-citizens-united-and-the-press.html?_r=0
Walt
He wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
"Citizens United" ignored 100 years of precedent.
People like you don't deserve a Republic, and you probably can't keep it.
"Last week, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. speciously defended the Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case by arguing that the ruling, which allowed unlimited independent campaign spending by corporations and unions, was not really groundbreaking at all. In fact, he said, all it did was reaffirm that corporations have free speech rights and that, without such rights, newspapers would have lost the major press freedom rulings that allowed the publication of the Pentagon Papers and made it easier for newspapers to defend themselves against libel suits in New York Times v. Sullivan.
“The question is whether speech that goes to the very heart of government should be limited to certain preferred corporations; namely, media corporations,” he said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative group. “Surely the idea that the First Amendment protects only certain privileged voices should be disturbing to anybody who believes in free speech.”
But Justice Alito’s argument wrongly confuses the matter. It is not the corporate structure of media companies that makes them deserving of constitutional protection. It is their function — the vital role that the press plays in American democracy — that sets them apart. In Citizens United, by a 5-to-4 vote, the court ruled that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, in limiting the amount that organizations could spend, severely restricted First Amendment rights. The law’s purpose and effect, according to the court, was to keep unions and most corporations from conveying facts and opinions to the public, though it exempted media corporations.
But the majority got that backward. The point of the law was to protect the news media’s freedom of speech and not the legal form that they happened to be organized under. While corporations make enormous contributions to society, they “are not actually members of it,” Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent. When the framers “constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind,” he noted, not that of corporations."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/opinion/justice-alito-citizens-united-and-the-press.html?_r=0
Walt
Justice Alito, Citizens United and the Press
Recent comments from Justice Samuel Alito Jr. of the Supreme Court again raises the role of the news media and how they are organized under American law.
(0)
(0)
Capt Walter Miller
"The Citizens United majority never explained why any corporation that does not have a press function warrants the same free speech rights as a person. Neither did Justice Alito. Meanwhile, the false equivalence of money and speech put forward by Citizens United and the money it unleashed is wreaking havoc in our politics."
(0)
(0)
0
0
0
Unless you are a democrat. Then you can do whatever the hell you want. They have Obama in his own words saying he can do it. But I know like Obama you won't let facts get in your way. He can nominate and that's all.
(0)
(0)
0
0
0
My first reaction upon seeing this was 'Hooboy, Walt's at it again'. Then I got to the second paragraph and couldn't agree more. I find this very disconcerting!
(0)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google