Barack Obama blinks, retreats on possible recess SCOTUS appointment.

Guess there really are limits to kingship.

Let me save everybody some valuable time: the answer will be ‘no.’  Can we move on now? Let us move on, now.

17 thoughts on “Barack Obama blinks, retreats on possible recess SCOTUS appointment.”

  1. I’m shocked.
    I was pretty sure the chance to overturn Heller would have caused him to nominate someone.
    Not to mention the challenges to his proposed environmental regulations.
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    The only way I can see this shaking or this way, is for the liberal justices to give him an ultimatum.

    1. I think he’s going for the permanent appointment, rather than the temporary one that a recess appointment would be. More damage to be done to the Republic that way.

  3. He’s got all week. This is at worst a test of the waters and a temporizing measure – he can always do something late in the week when “the Republicans are too partisan to allow us to make needed progress.”
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    Or not. It’s not like he particularly cares what happens from here anyway.

  4. I have very mixed feelings about this.
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    On the one hand, anyone this president appoints to the Supreme Court is going to be an insult to the Constitution. So no recess appointment is at least temporarily the best thing that could happen for the United States, which ought to be our primary concern.
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    On the other hand, many of the cases coming up from the lower courts are cases where Scalia could have been the deciding vote for reversal. In his absence (RIP), a 4-4 vote would just affirm the bad decision anyway, and it’s hard to see how an extra vote positively affirming the result would make it much worse. Plus, it would allow a Republican president to make his own nomination. (Which is another good argument against Trump, but I’ll leave that alone for now.)
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    On the gripping hand, this decision unfortunately suggests that our president may be paying more attention than I’d like to the question of how the manner in which he makes his appointment might impact the fortunes of his party. A real shame, that.

      1. Considering the state of the economy, the state of the country, and the state of the world, I have no shortage of complaints.

        1. Well, I didn’t mean in *general*. Just that we have scored any number of wins because Barack Obama never understood why he needed to give a sh*t about, say, the state legislature of West Virginia.

    1. Heard a rumor that McConnell has also said “no” to approving anyone pending the next election, but ..
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      Let’s face it, ol’ Mitch is .. not so much rock-ribbed as self-interested.. I can see him overruling Grassley if it can be made to suit him.
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      Mew
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      p.s. has anyone seen Trey Grayson recently?

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