Some interesting developments in the Supreme Court process.
First, Susan Collins of Maine, noted liberal Republican, criticized Biden for saying he would pick a black woman. I find this fascinating because of all the Republicans, Collins is the one I would think would have been cool with the idea. What's more, polls show that 3 in 10 Americans don't like the idea of limiting his choices that way. That's significant because it confirms what I'm seeing about the summer of race baiting coming to a very hard end. This is not Ted Cruz, Sean Hannity and 4/10 angry white conservatives critizing Biden, this is basically average Americans. Black Lives Matter's support has dried up with the public.
This is also bad news for Biden who just keeps sinking.
Secondly, the Republicans are playing this right in my opinion. Trump aside, the Republicans in the Senate are being cordial, cooperative and saying they are happy to vote for a black woman. All of that flies in the face of the left's racism push and it has prevented any mainstream headlines accusing them of racism.
Third, beause of the way the Republicans are acting, Biden is being backed into a corner. He can either pick a fight and get a 50-50 controversial nomination needing a VP tie breaker vote, or he can get a genuinely bipartisan nomination. In a rational world, the bipartisan vote makes the most sense. The public likes cooperation and the nominee would get more credibility if they are confirmed in a bipartisan manner.
BUT... Biden may be looking to pick a fight to fire up his base. His disengenuous attack on the Fox News Reporter ("dumb son of a bitch") suggests he thinks it's more important to fire up his base than try to win over the public at large -- Biden called to apologize right after the bizare attack and strangely said, "It's nothing personal," which I read as "this was meant to fire up my base and wasn't really aimed at you personally." So he may try to pick someone the GOP hates as bait to cause a fight.
BUT... there are two problems with that. First, he might have another Manchin problem. The GOP has been pushing a sitting judge from South Carolina. Biden's base is pushing more for non-judges like Law School professors and "civil rights activists," who are usually more screwball-ish than active judges. But Joe Manchin, who Biden needs, said tonight that picking someone who was previously confirmed would speed everything up, i.e. a judge. I read that as: dump these weirdos and pick a sitting judge. There are three on Biden's list, but only two went through the Senate. So I think Manchin just limited Biden's picks to those judges.
AND... a new problem happened tonight - a big one. A Senator from New Mexico had a stroke. He's alive, but may be out some time. While he's out, the Senate is actually 49-50 in favor of the GOP. It's the democratic nightmare scenario they've been worried about, and it kills their agenda even if they win over Sinema and Manchin. Bascially, Biden needs the GOP now if he wants to seat a judge because he can't win at 49-50.
Biden may still try to get a nominee shot down and then try to make a deal, but the danger is that Manchin may have just told Biden how it's going to be and Biden runs the risk of an intra-party feud if he does that. What's more, a chunk of GOP Senators is talking to the Senate Democrats about joining them on this vote - they did not make the offer to Biden, but to the Senate. And the Senate is not going to like Biden lobbing a partisan bomb into the chamber on this.
One more thought. The Democrats are making a mistake trying to rush this. Manchin and the others are talking about speed and the media is wrongly talking about getting her on the bench as quickly as possible. This is actually pointless as she will just be joining the losing side and there is no difference between 6-3 and 6-2. If anything, going 6-2 lets you argue later that a decision never had the full court's consideration and should be reconsidered. Reopening a 6-3 case is more purely political. So why rush it? Maybe that's the wrong question... let's flip it and ask: why delay it?
If she's confirmed in March, she's on the court long before the election and the energy of the issue is gone. If she's still hanging in October, then her nomination becomes a hot button issue. But here's the thing, GOP voters don't care because they know Biden gets someone no matter what, so this doesn't influence their desire to turn out. If anything, this can sow discord in the primaries as challengers squeal about them RINOs who are failing to hold out three more years. On the other hand, the left might turn out to do their best to support Senate Democrats to make sure the GOP can't force a conservative on weak-spined Biden. Or alternatively, they could use a recent victory to advertise the need to keep the Senate for the next nominee. If the victory is in October the issue is fresh and angry. If it's in March, no one remembers. Honestly, I would delay this into the election season and accuse the GOP of obstruction if I were the left.
First, Susan Collins of Maine, noted liberal Republican, criticized Biden for saying he would pick a black woman. I find this fascinating because of all the Republicans, Collins is the one I would think would have been cool with the idea. What's more, polls show that 3 in 10 Americans don't like the idea of limiting his choices that way. That's significant because it confirms what I'm seeing about the summer of race baiting coming to a very hard end. This is not Ted Cruz, Sean Hannity and 4/10 angry white conservatives critizing Biden, this is basically average Americans. Black Lives Matter's support has dried up with the public.
This is also bad news for Biden who just keeps sinking.
Secondly, the Republicans are playing this right in my opinion. Trump aside, the Republicans in the Senate are being cordial, cooperative and saying they are happy to vote for a black woman. All of that flies in the face of the left's racism push and it has prevented any mainstream headlines accusing them of racism.
Third, beause of the way the Republicans are acting, Biden is being backed into a corner. He can either pick a fight and get a 50-50 controversial nomination needing a VP tie breaker vote, or he can get a genuinely bipartisan nomination. In a rational world, the bipartisan vote makes the most sense. The public likes cooperation and the nominee would get more credibility if they are confirmed in a bipartisan manner.
BUT... Biden may be looking to pick a fight to fire up his base. His disengenuous attack on the Fox News Reporter ("dumb son of a bitch") suggests he thinks it's more important to fire up his base than try to win over the public at large -- Biden called to apologize right after the bizare attack and strangely said, "It's nothing personal," which I read as "this was meant to fire up my base and wasn't really aimed at you personally." So he may try to pick someone the GOP hates as bait to cause a fight.
BUT... there are two problems with that. First, he might have another Manchin problem. The GOP has been pushing a sitting judge from South Carolina. Biden's base is pushing more for non-judges like Law School professors and "civil rights activists," who are usually more screwball-ish than active judges. But Joe Manchin, who Biden needs, said tonight that picking someone who was previously confirmed would speed everything up, i.e. a judge. I read that as: dump these weirdos and pick a sitting judge. There are three on Biden's list, but only two went through the Senate. So I think Manchin just limited Biden's picks to those judges.
AND... a new problem happened tonight - a big one. A Senator from New Mexico had a stroke. He's alive, but may be out some time. While he's out, the Senate is actually 49-50 in favor of the GOP. It's the democratic nightmare scenario they've been worried about, and it kills their agenda even if they win over Sinema and Manchin. Bascially, Biden needs the GOP now if he wants to seat a judge because he can't win at 49-50.
Biden may still try to get a nominee shot down and then try to make a deal, but the danger is that Manchin may have just told Biden how it's going to be and Biden runs the risk of an intra-party feud if he does that. What's more, a chunk of GOP Senators is talking to the Senate Democrats about joining them on this vote - they did not make the offer to Biden, but to the Senate. And the Senate is not going to like Biden lobbing a partisan bomb into the chamber on this.
One more thought. The Democrats are making a mistake trying to rush this. Manchin and the others are talking about speed and the media is wrongly talking about getting her on the bench as quickly as possible. This is actually pointless as she will just be joining the losing side and there is no difference between 6-3 and 6-2. If anything, going 6-2 lets you argue later that a decision never had the full court's consideration and should be reconsidered. Reopening a 6-3 case is more purely political. So why rush it? Maybe that's the wrong question... let's flip it and ask: why delay it?
If she's confirmed in March, she's on the court long before the election and the energy of the issue is gone. If she's still hanging in October, then her nomination becomes a hot button issue. But here's the thing, GOP voters don't care because they know Biden gets someone no matter what, so this doesn't influence their desire to turn out. If anything, this can sow discord in the primaries as challengers squeal about them RINOs who are failing to hold out three more years. On the other hand, the left might turn out to do their best to support Senate Democrats to make sure the GOP can't force a conservative on weak-spined Biden. Or alternatively, they could use a recent victory to advertise the need to keep the Senate for the next nominee. If the victory is in October the issue is fresh and angry. If it's in March, no one remembers. Honestly, I would delay this into the election season and accuse the GOP of obstruction if I were the left.
Biden must be in trouble... he once again used his dead to push his agenda. He does that when he needs a boost.
ReplyDeleteApparently, we're going to cut cancer deaths in half by looking at "inequities." Who knew that race baiting could cure cancer?
As an aside, two more race issues to mention today.
ReplyDelete1. The black coach suing the NFL for discrimination was fired by a black GM and was trying to replace a black coach in Denver during the supposed "sham" interview. Those facts get ignored in the discussions by sportswriters, who have already convicted the NFL... naturally.
The one interesting problem the NFL does have is that their head of diversity said a lot of corporate confession stuff "oh, we are so racist... oh we are so racist... forgive us oh Lord", which is now being used against the NFL. I think this could lead to a change in the way corporations confess as PR. As a lawyer though, I see this ending in disaster for the coach and horrified shock for the news media.
2. The three women leading BLM are on the verge of being charged with embezzlement in California for skimming tens of millions of dollars in donations. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Commentarama speaks and the world listens...
ReplyDeleteTeam Biden leaked this morning that U.S. Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the favorite to be nominated. She was confirmed by the Senate last year after having been a District Judge for some years.
She will apparently be President Manchin's choice...
Not the main thrust of your article, I know, but the disingenuous "dumb son of a bitch" remark followed by the equally disingenuous apology sure was red meat for the NeverTrump wing of the Democrat Party (not a typo). They were quite eager to heap praise on “you ain’t black” Biden for becoming the new avatar of decorum and civility. What a farce!
ReplyDeletetryanmax, That whole thing felt really staged to me. I would bet money on it that Biden decided to pick an angry fight with Fox to throw red meat to his base to change his image. So he planned out some nasty-but-television-acceptable comment he could lob and he lobbed it first chance.
ReplyDeleteI think that because the vitriol of the insult didn't fit the "sin" of the question asked, which wasn't at all out of line, i.e. it made no sense to blow up at this question. It also sounded tough, but wasn't nasty enough that anyone would have criticized him for saying it. It certainly wasn't nasty enough to need an apology. And then to immediately call the guy and say, so strangely, "nothing personal" when it was entirely personal shows that the anger was fake and Biden didn't want the reporter taking it as being personally meant for him, i.e. this was all part of the job.
Conclusion: manufactured outrage meant to make his base think Biden has had enough being pushed around by their enemies.