Obama asked Republican leaders to offer top court nominee: White House

Mar 01, 2016, 21:18

Even as Senate Republicans vow to block President Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick until after the election, GOP leaders are quietly maneuvering to approve lower-level judicial nominees in the Senate pipeline, including several from conservative states who were recommended by Republican lawmakers. "It is time to move away from advise and obstruct and get back to advise and consent". Harry Reid of Nev., Vice President Joe Biden, the president, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, the New York Times reported. I bet to the vast majority of people listening, that sounds like an extremely fair, bipartisan solution. And I'd be willing to bet they'd agree with me. All Republican members of that committee have now agreed that no nominee of President Obama will receive a hearing, let alone a vote. The president can nominate or leave the decision to his successor.

In the presidential campaign this past week, Democrat Hillary Clinton called on Black women at an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority alumnae event in SC to "see if we can't find a handful of Republicans who understand and will do their duty, who believe they are called by the Constitution to do just that".

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You can bet anyone participating in Buffett's office pool will be spending some of their working hours thinking about their picks. Berkshire prefers to own a non-controlling but sizeable stake of "a wonderful company" rather than 100% of "a so-so business".

The article quoted Cornyn arguing, "I don't think the situation with regard to Justice Scalia's vacancy is going to have any impact on those other appointments". Indeed, one reason why Donald Trump and the other anti-Establishment Republican candidates have swept the Party is that conservative voters feel DC Republicans have done precisely this over and over. And it's why we have robust public debates ahead of those elections to determine who best can lead our country and make lasting decisions like nominating Supreme Court justices.

The White House said Monday that President Obama will press hard throughout the spring and into the summer for confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee, despite steep odds against getting Senate approval.

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Meanwhile, Obama continues to consider possible nominees. The Senate's refusal to meet with Obama was never ultimately based on avoiding a liberal appointee, but rather on a thoroughgoing commitment to discerning the will of the people. Keeping in mind the current political makeup of the court, the man or woman who will replace Justice Scalia has the potential to hold incredible influence over the ideological direction of the court for generations to come. Americans seek politics that feed our hopes of engaging together through democratic discourse in a spirit of willingness to put our common interests and the interests of future generations ahead of short-term expediency. With Scalia no longer able to fight with businesses against these multiparty lawsuits, businesses may be less likely to take their chances in a split Supreme Court.

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Maimane went on to ask how a party once led by liberation icon and racial reconciliator Nelson Mandela "has been reduced to this". The support of Zuma is weaker but not to the point of collapse", Susan Booysen of the University of the Witwatersrand told AFP.