U.S. Senate confirms Merrick Garland as Attorney General

[beschizza]

Originally published at: U.S. Senate confirms Merrick Garland as Attorney General | Boing Boing

…

[allenk]

“The president and his team must be thrilled that Senate Republicans are proving to be more fair and more principled on personnel matters than the Democratic minority’s behavior just four years ago,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just before the Garland vote [this one!].

Opinion | The Senate’s F-Bomb

[KingGhidorah]

And he’s Judy Garland’s 2nd cousin twice removed. Not really, but wouldn’t that be something?

[belovedvillain]

What a piece of work that guy is. Nominees like DeVos didn’t even deserve a hearing.

[DukeTrout]

@allenk

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just before the Garland vote [this one!].

[gracchus]

Schumer may have figured things out, but until he starts acting like the GOP is the Party of Demonstrable Bad Faith he’ll keep kicking at that football.

[dommerdoodle]

Chris Hayes: GOP offers no policy ideas, just obstruction and trolling

[Scientist]

@beschizza

Garland would never have been confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court anyway, because Republicans were in the majority and the chance of them losing that majority during a Clinton presidency was vanishingly unlikely. The thought that we somehow lost out on Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland is the same sad old fantasy

Do you really think that the republicans would have left Scotus at 8 judges for 5 years? Because Garland was already a centrist pick to placate them. If they were going to sandbag him, then they would have done the same for any nomination.

[cannibalpeas]

@Scientist

Do you really think that the republicans would have left Scotus at 8 judges for 5 years?

Under Hillary Clinton? Absolutely.

[davolente]

Let’s hope he gets cracking on the orange one before the statute of limitations runs out!

[beschizza]

@Scientist

Do you really think that the republicans would have left Scotus at 8 judges for 5 years?

Without question!

We’d be in 2023, Hillary at the end of 8 years with a GOP Senate, with at least two seats open (Scalia’s and Bader Ginsburg’s) and as many as three more (octogenarians Kennedy and Breyer and septegenarian Thomas) retirements/second-term corpses on her hands. They would still be holding out on Garland.

More than that, we would have had years of Fox News posing Garland as beyond the far left of reasonable consideration, rather than the compromise pick he always was, with overwhelming pressure on Hillary to compromise further. We would be down to four justices and Hillary would call it a win if only two of the five replacements were Federalist Society picks.

[fnordius]

@gracchus

Schumer may have figured things out, but until he starts acting like the GOP is the Party of Demonstrable Bad Faith he’ll keep kicking at that football.

I get some impression that Schumer is only pretending to kick at the football, but really investing his energy elsewhere. The reason may be that he knows the weaknesses of the GOP (notably their laziness in following through), so letting them be smug keeps them occupied. It’s just a hunch, mind, so we will see when HR1 comes to the senate.