[Lune]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The Executive branch is subordinate to the Legislature in this situation.

No it is not. That's not what subordinate means. You were right when you called it collaborative. The Senate gets input. If anything the Senate is subordinate because they cannot nominate, only approve or disapprove the President's nomination.

If it becomes precedent that the Senate can just choose to never accept a nomination for partisan reasons, then our system is broken. It's clearly not the way it was meant to work. Senates have been forced to accept nominations from the opposite party for the entirety of our country's history. The only reason it's not happening now is because we have some of the most criminal, obstructionist political representatives in our history; people who have been sent by corporations, special interests, and their redneck serfs to plunder and destroy the government from the inside.

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Unfortunately the role of the SCOTUS has been perverted. It now exists as a means of subverting the power of the Legislature.

The simple fact that we openly recognize Justices as liberal/conservative is testament of the corruption.

If the court, the justices and judges of lower courts actually did their fucking jobs and interpreted law in a non-partisan fashion there wouldn't be an issue.

It's a nice thought. Making partisan decisions as a member of the high court should be considered taboo. Unfortunately, it's the reality of human nature, and the reality of our system, to have ideological division institutionalized into a system of checks and balances.

Breaking the Supreme Court by refusing to appoint judges doesn't solve the problem. Don't forget one of the jobs of the Supreme Court is precisely to counter the power of the legislature by striking down laws that violate the constitution. When the SCOTUS can't perform that role, our system is broken. We'd lose a lot more by breaking the SCOTUS than we'd gain by solving whatever silly grievance you have with the way they've behaved.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I just don't see Hillary winning against Trump. Trump's whole campaign revolves around him standing up for the American people against the corrupt/incompetent elites in Washington. And what better punching bag for him than Hillary Clinton? All we will hear about for the next 6 months is about how Clinton is fomenting wars in the Middle East, how she can be bought (because he did in fact pay her off to attend his wedding!), how she is owned by Wall Street, how she is incompetent (email scandals), how her primary claim to the Presidency is her vagina, how she 'sometimes tries to tell the truth', and so on. Meanwhile the economy will continue to get worse (we're already in a recession) and the average voter will get more and more frustrated and therefore receptive to Trump's 'Make America Great Again' pitch. I think there is a 75% chance Trump is elected President, a 20% chance he's assassinated by the FBI, and a 5% chance the economy miraculously recovers and Hillary wins with the help of rampant election fraud.

Ironically, Bernie probably would have had a better shot vs Trump, but the Democrats have spent the past 50 years demonizing white males, so none of their minority stooges will vote for him.

He has to be careful though. Him bashing Carly Fiorina and that one Fox News bimbo about menstruation and their looks may play well with his base, but that kind of shit might sink him in the general election.

There's just too many in the silent majority who view Trump and his shenanigans with contempt. Trump may be on track to win the Republican nomination, but look who he had to run against... as I said at the beginning of this election, it was a veritable clown car. Nobody even half as electable as Romney. Trump would get decimated among Hispanics and blacks, which are huge minorities... including in Florida, an important swing state.

Sanders literally just ran against Clinton with the same kind of anti-establishment campaign message you assign to Trump, and he was handily defeated. I don't think Trump's willingness to take it further and call Clinton names is going to go over well in the general election. She's too manipulative, too great at spin. Trump would also have to swing left in the general election too, losing even more of the far-right Republicans who hate him already.

The economy has been in the shitter since 2007 in every way except GDP growth. I don't think it's going to become noticeably bad enough in time to swing this election.