Gorsuch Is A Home Run

If Democrats are looking for a point of vulnerability in either Gorsuch’s integrity or impartiality, they won’t find it. He is basically a Boy Scout. He’s a faithful husband, a good father, a caring neighbor, a generous friend, a man of probity who holds himself to the highest ethical standards. Oh, and he will bring religious diversity to a Court that is entirely Catholic and Jewish: He’s an Episcopalian.

Gorsuch will be a hard man to depict as a ferocious partisan or an ideological judge, which isn’t to say he won’t be described this way by ideologically partisan critics for whom the prospect of a conservative intellectual giant on the Supreme Court is anything but welcome. As Gorsuch himself has frequently observed, including in a widely noted tribute to Scalia, good judges sometimes have to vote or rule in ways they do not like — because that is what the law requires.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/01/ignore-the-attacks-on-neil-gorsuch-hes-an-intellectual-giant-and-a-good-man/?utm_term=.882f42809c67

Which Do The People Want?

If the American people want a liberal, activist Supreme Court legislating from on high as the supreme branch of power, they'll decide that in November.

And if they want a reserved, more conservative court, one that doesn't dictate to the legislature or goes out of its way to supersede legislative (meaning the people's) prerogative, Americans will decide that too.

All the rest is meat puppet mud wrestling. Yes, President Barack Obama has the right to appoint a successor. And yes, the Senate, now under Republican control, has the right to dismiss it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-supreme-court-scalia-kass-0217-20160216-column.html

It's a meaningless question to ask "what do the people want" as if "we" has a definable meaning.  I want something, you want something, and others want something entirely different.  However, in fight, there has to be some rationale ...

Power Struggles Are to be Won

This is about nothing but raw power. Any appeal you hear to high principle is phony — brazenly, embarrassingly so.

In Year Seven of the George W. Bush administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer publicly opposed filling any Supreme Court vacancy until Bush left office. (“Except in extraordinary circumstances.” None such arose. Surprise!) Today he piously denounces Republicans for doing exactly the same for a vacancy created in Year Eight of Barack Obama.

Republicans, say the Democrats, owe the President deference. Elections have consequences and Obama won re-election in 2012.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/republicans-win-nino-article-1.2536350