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2020 Democratic Nominee


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I just don't get the point of being a Mayor Pete supporter outside of the limousine libs he's scamming who have some odd personal affection towards him.  Why not just be a fucking man and support Diamond Joe, the guy who actually has a good chance of being elected?

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5 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

I just don't get the point of being a Mayor Pete supporter outside of the limousine libs he's scamming who have some odd personal affection towards him.  Why not just be a fucking man and support Diamond Joe, the guy who actually has a good chance of being elected?

Because the Democrats seem intent on losing an unloseable election.

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Just now, Message Board User said:

Because the Democrats seem intent on losing an unloseable election.

Well Mayor Pete is uh...smart? And he says things that sound great but have very little meaning? BUT EVERYTHING IS SO NUANCED IT CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD BY YOUR PLEBIAN BRAINS

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1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

I just don't get the point of being a Mayor Pete supporter outside of the limousine libs he's scamming who have some odd personal affection towards him.  Why not just be a fucking man and support Diamond Joe, the guy who actually has a good chance of being elected?

Pete and Liz are both powerful identity politics figures for well-educated white people. Liz has a lot of substance to back that up, though. Pete is a joke, but we like jokes.

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Just now, Mojo Hand said:

Or, you sure do love to fall for the spin to clean it up. 

Sure thing, Mojo. 


Here's the full quote re: SC reform from that article. 

Emily Tannenbaum, entertainment editor: As a bisexual woman, the structure of the Supreme Court is a real concern to me, and you’ve proposed pretty drastic changes with the way it’s set up and how many people are on the bench. What specifically is the first thing you’d change and how would you do it?

Pete Buttigieg: So this is something that’s very important to me in terms of the independence and the integrity of the Supreme Court. As you know, it’s especially important for LGBTQ rights, but it’s important for access to abortion and many other issues too. When I look at the Supreme Court, I can’t help but remember that my marriage only exists by the grace of a single vote in that body.

Now, what I’m proposing that we do in terms of reform is to stop the descent of the Supreme Court into becoming yet another political body. This is not about making sure that it agrees with me on everything. My appointments will definitely be people who share my values. But when I’m talking about the structure of the Supreme Court, I’m talking about something deeper. I’m talking about depoliticizing the Supreme Court. Because right now, every time there’s a vacancy, there’s this apocalyptic ideological battle and it hurts the court and it hurts the country.

So I’ve floated several ideas and deliberately kept some level of open-mindedness about which ones are going to work best. One of them would be to have 15 members, but 5 of them can only be seated if the other 10 unanimously agree. The idea here is you get more justices who think for themselves. Justices like Justice Kennedy or Justice Souter, and there are many legal scholars who think this could be done without a constitutional amendment under current law.

Another approach would be to have term limits. You know, Supreme Court justices, they used to just retire like everybody else. But now, we have these strange scenarios of people clinging, almost seeming to cling on for dear life because they want to make sure that they leave the bench under the right presidency. And this would help deal with that issue. Someone suggested that we rotate judges on and off the appellate bench.

The reason I’m introducing these very bold ideas is to elevate our imagination about them. But I’m not arriving in office saying I have the answer on this one. So the first step that I’ll do is to appoint a commission with this mission: Make the Supreme Court less political. Give us a road map to do that. And then based on their recommendations, I will go to Congress with a proposal. If absolutely necessary, we might have to have a conversation about an amendment, but I believe most of these reforms could be achieved within the framework of the current constitution.

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Right, you're falling for the spin that a vague allusion to his values somehow negates or modifies his identification of Justice Kennedy as the kind of justice we need to "get more" of because they "think for themselves." 

It either shows a shocking level of ignorance of who Justice Kennedy is, and the shift in the Court that would make him a swing vote on any social issues, or an agreement with that state of affairs.   Each of those options is disqualifying to me for someone who is running to remake the Supreme Court. 

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Just now, Mojo Hand said:

Right, you're falling for the spin that a vague allusion to his values somehow negates or modifies his identification of Justice Kennedy as the kind of justices we need to "get more" of because they "think for themselves." 

It either shows a shocking level of ignorance of who Justice Kennedy is, and the shift in the Court that would make him a swing vote on any social issues, or an agreement with that state of affairs.   Each of those options is disqualifying to me for someone who is running to remake the Supreme Court. 

You do realize why Pete would use Kennedy as an example, right? 

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Just now, Hank Kingsley said:

You do realize why Pete would use Kennedy as an example, right? 

Yes.  It's the same reason awful Republican Rob Portman now supports gay marriage.   It affects him personally.  It doesn't excuse either ignorance of or a lack of empathy for others outside of your personal situation. 

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9 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Yes.  It's the same reason awful Republican Rob Portman now supports gay marriage.   It affects him personally.  It doesn't excuse either ignorance of or a lack of empathy for others outside of your personal situation. 

Do you actually believe Pete Buttigieg was saying he wants more Kennedys based off his entire voting/ruling record? 

Why do you think he included Souter with Kennedy in his quote? 

 

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and at no point did he say “we need 15 justice kennedy’s because he supported something that was important to me once.”

one day “he’s too poll-tested politician-like”, then the next day “he’s basing his opinions on stuff that’s personal to him!”

hint - it can’t be both. you guys are trying too hard. 

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Gee, I wonder why he used Kennedy and Souter as examples when this was the starting point of his statement: 

So this is something that’s very important to me in terms of the independence and the integrity of the Supreme Court. As you know, it’s especially important for LGBTQ rights, but it’s important for access to abortion and many other issues too. When I look at the Supreme Court, I can’t help but remember that my marriage only exists by the grace of a single vote in that body.

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7 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Do you actually believe Pete Buttigieg was saying he wants more Kennedys based off his entire voting/ruling record? 

 

No.   I think Pete knows virtually nothing about the Supreme Court before he became an adult, greatly limiting the examples the he can draw on.  I think he knows very little about the Justices in recent years, outside of a few cases that he's paid attention to, so he doesn't really know much about Kennedy's voting record.  And I think Pete confuses "breaking with political party" with thoughtful jurisprudence.   

The first two are disqualifying on grounds of ignorance.  The third is disqualifying on grounds of incompetence. 

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14 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

and at no point did he say “we need 15 justice kennedy’s because he supported something that was important to me once.”

one day “he’s too poll-tested politician-like”, then the next day “he’s basing his opinions on stuff that’s personal to him!”

hint - it can’t be both. you guys are trying too hard. 

Sure it can.  He's not a robot or a piece of software.   He doesn't literally poll-test every single word and then only repeat those words.   His positions seem to be increasingly shaped by poll-testing.  And he shows his ass sometimes in free-flowing conversations, like any other human.  Only this topic is highly important for the next president. 

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16 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

He said Kennedy or Souter.  Republicans hate Souter.  He was just trying to name drop swing votes that supposedly could go either way.  His point was to say we need more judges that aren’t party line votes.

I don’t think Pete Buttigieg is a Constitutional Law expert trying to signal how much he appreciates Kennedy’s specific views on the commerce clause or securities regulation.

This is probably what he meant, but of course, the usual people saw Kennedy's name and the usual people freaked out. Gotcha Politics 2020

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55 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Why do you think he included Souter with Kennedy in his quote? 

Because the ideal governing world in his mind is a West Wing episode where powerful people deliver grand, contentless speeches at each other, nothing happens for the poor, and the elites maintain power and congratulate themselves on their broadmindedness as they squabble over the center/center-right 30 yards of the 100-yard field.

He doesn't want there to be any fighting. He doesn't want there to be any losers. He wants grand bargains.

He's a coward and he sucks.

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59 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

one day “he’s too poll-tested politician-like”, then the next day “he’s basing his opinions on stuff that’s personal to him!”

hint - it can’t be both. you guys are trying too hard. 

Pitching opinions based on stuff that’s personal to you performs exceptionally well in our focus group tests. 

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By the way, the smart move is to just rely on a group of knowledgeable leftist lawyers on the left and say, "I'm going to consult with them when I make my appointments."

The Heritage Foundation puts together the lists for Republican politicians, and it's extremely powerful and effective. They build up the bench and it's ready-made.

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2 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

I think your first paragraph is correct.  I also believe the “we need swing votes on the Supreme Court” idea is politician pablum and actually a very naive position.  The Supreme Court doesn’t decide the type of questions where it should be completely unpredictable how a Justice will rule.  If you have a consistent judicial philosophy, you shouldn’t be much of a swing vote.  To me, swing votes on SCOTUS are people seeking specific outcomes and trying to play Congressmen instead of Justice.

Having said that, I don’t think he was signaling that he’s a Republican in sheep’s clothing, and I doubt any candidate except Warren is going to have a real informed opinion of SCOTUS or potential candidates, so to say it’s “disqualifying” is pretty extreme.  If it’s disqualifying, then lawyers are the only people who get to run for President, and only a small subset of lawyers at that.

I'm ok with a Dem candidate who isn't that informed but defers to those who are informed.  That's why most Dems running follow the party line when they give examples of ideal Justices.  It's when you break from that and run on your own viewpoint of remaking the Court that it becomes decisive, because you'll be picking Justices from a different rubric. 

Pete is explicitly running as a Supreme Court reformer.   The examples he's floating are not the Dem party line, but freaking Kennedy and Souter.   With party line-crossing as his marker for good jurisprudence.  

His comments show me that he is in way over his head and doesn't even realize it.   That's why it's disqualifying.  

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1 minute ago, Bruh Man said:

Bernie not showing up for Cummings funeral is not a good look. Black folks hold huge grudges for this. 

Hillary showed.  Though I've been told she only cares about the black community when she's running. 

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9 minutes ago, Bruh Man said:

Bernie not showing up for Cummings funeral is not a good look. Black folks hold huge grudges for this. 

Bernie is not my #1 candidate, and since he's a competitor to my favorite, I have no choice but to assume Bernie Sanders is a racist. What a shame. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Thread from a rational human being. 

 

This misses the point.  Imagine if he had said that his proposed process would add "neutrals" who "think for themselves" and depoliticize the Court, like Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist.   All cool, because he isn't proposing adding those guys under the current system?   Or maybe a problem because of who he chose as examples of neutral, free-thinking, depoliticizing judges that his ideal system would add as "neutrals?" 

This isn't about Pete's pie-in-the-sky reform proposal that will never happen.  It's about his characterization of Kennedy and what it says about Pete's level of knowledge and judgment.  

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8 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

“Promise what Bernie/Liz promised, but up the dollar amount” isn’t the hallmark of wonkish seriousness.  That minority percentage of board seats they both promise workers is a nice Pyrrhic victory touch they both include, though.  “Enjoy the ambiance of our conference room while you get a closer view of us still voting to do whatever we want.”

Great point, if anyone were basing claims of wonkish seriousness on those things instead of, you know, the entire detailed policies that each has produced. 

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4 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

And to each his own, but rather than wonkish, I find Bernie’s detailed policies a lot more naive and disqualifying than Pete’s comments on Kennedy or SCOTUS.  

you have it twisted.

the idea is to come in with outlandish progressive-policy that will never ever get passed as is and to refuse to budge on anything, because if you come in with pre-compromised ideas, you're a sell-out.

catch up dude.

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