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BillBrasky Memorial Political Chat Thread

BeachBumDeac said:
You noted three that the Dems didn’t hold hearings on. How many of Obama’s candidates did McConnell block hearings on? I’ll take any two year period.
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I noted 3 in the Fourth Circuit because that’s what I remember.

The information you are looking for is available online if you are interested. Be sure to let us know what you find out.
 
According to this Politifact article, Obama left 105 vacancies on the federal bench when he left office in January 2017 (Trump claimed it was 128 but was mistaken).

The article states that "While Trump inflates the number, the bigger question is did Obama, and by extension Joe Biden, drop the ball on judicial appointments? There’s broad agreement that their problem was not a lack of trying, but the power of a Republican Senate to bottle up their nominees. "Scholars have referred to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's actions during this time as a blockade of judicial appointments," said Michigan State political scientist Ian Ostrander. "Very few judicial nominations were successful during the 114th Congress," Republicans won control of the Senate in 2014. From that point on, the numbers show how hard it was for Obama to seat the people he put forward.

During the two years before Republicans took the Senate, Obama had a confirmation success rate of nearly 90%. Afterward, the confirmation rate fell to 28%. It always makes a difference when the opposing party holds the Senate in the last two years of any presidency, but Brookings governance fellow Russell Wheeler wrote that Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush faced that situation, too, and still had much higher success rates. The Senate of 2015 and 2016 was nearly impenetrable. "The 114th Senate both confirmed far fewer judges than its recent other-party predecessors and stopped confirming them at a much earlier point," Wheeler wrote.

"That Obama left office with so many unfilled vacancies was largely by design — by Mitch McConnell," said the University of Vermont’s Lisa Holmes.

Link: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/02/donald-trump/fact-check-why-barack-obama-failed-fill-over-100-j/
 
NPR had a segment earlier today talking about leadership styles and a large portion of it was dedicated to Stacey Abrams. She really is one of the more intelligent, candid and generally likable politicians going. The amount of things she is able to juggle and do well is incredible. I honestly don't think I want nationwide politics to change her. It's truly remarkable that someone could listen to Brian Kemp speak and think he's even remotely close to her level. Perhaps there is something else at play there...
 
Republicans don’t want to elect educated people, they want someone they can drink a beer with…

Fucking idiots
 
Who would want to have a beer with Brian Kemp or Ted Cruz or Mitch McConnell? Trump doesn’t even drink.

Republicans want people who affirm their greed, hate, and ignorance. Beer or no beer.
 
 
I understand the desire for a counter narrative and a way to frame Republicans voting against public funding. But this ain’t it.

Democrats can talk in terms of general support for first responders with an emphasis on public safety. Focus on firefighters, EMT, and emerging public safety programs that don’t rely on police. Call it backing the red, white, and blue.

My city councilman is very popular across the aisle despite being a Democrat partly because he shows extreme deference to first responders and his big priority is making sure all his constituents have short response times especially in lower income neighborhood with busier fire departments.
 
Third Way just runs the senior arm of the party now.

DC is a good example of Dems getting played no matter what they do on police reforms. After MPD tear gassed and shot at peaceful protestors last summer, defund was at an all time high approval rating in DC. Mayor Bowser played up the Black Lives Matter plaza and painting the street near the White House as a big fuck you to Trump, and then quietly gave DC Police a $1bn boost in budget. Now a year on, murders are at a 20 year high in DC, and the Friends of Police and several police chiefs across departments are saying "this is happening because we can't do our jobs because the Democrats want to defund the police." Bowser just wrote them a blank check for overtime and new equipment! They just bought a tank! It's a losing issue no matter how the Dems play it.
 
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