The United States is officially DEAD!!!!

If the Blue Wave folks are right, then Democrats can flip the senate, and essentially block nominations indefinitely as long as they hold 51 votes.

Won't be difficult to delay any nomination until after mid-terms.

Of course, this assumes that democrats show up to vote in the mid-terms consistently, and democrats in congress grow a spine. There is a first time for everything!

6-3? I thought Kennedy was the moderate swing?

@2 Not saying that's a bad idea, but stalling on the SCOTUS will help get out the vote for conservatives mid-terms; the GOP will make it about abortion, gun rights, immigration, etc. and not about Trump. That will decrease the chances/size of a Blue Wave. Defenders of decency, tolerance, and progress have a hard battle head.

Yeah, it's still 5-4. But the swinger is gone.

@ 4,

The opposite is also true: Dem voters will overwhelm the Republinazis with high turnout due to the crisis reaching the Supreme Court.

Yes, but maybe they were already going to overwhelm with high turnout, due to Trump. For the record, I'm not saying I really know, I think it's really up in the air and subject to all kinds of unknowns.

Fuck. Do dems have numbers to delay/fillibuster until at least 2020?

Why wouldn't McConnell wait to fill it until the after the midterms to help drive GOP turnout, then if they lose the Senate confirm him between November and January?

Good. Let this shit hole country burn

This is indeed a calamity but your count is off. The votes will still be 5-4 there will just no longer be a swing vote.

Well, aside from in gay rights cases, he has been pretty much voting with the fringe right block ever more consistently anyway. Sure would be swell if somehow confirmation could be delayed until after the election and that blue tsunami actually materialized. The latter is rather unlikely though. The Dems are at a disadvantage in terms of how many seats they have to defend as opposed how many they have a shot at flipping.

Whoops, my post submission got delayed. Guess was answered by @2.

First @10,

Ugh, that's depressingly horrible and well conceived as strategy.

@4: I would imagine that the cold political calculus of not having five conservatives on the Supreme Court would outweigh the chance of not winning big in the mid terms.

That being said, everyone I see who is left leaning is assuming a huge win in the mid-terms, so if that is true, it wouldn't matter.

I am a bit more of a skeptic though. I expect the GOP to take a hit (like usually happens in the mid-terms to the party that holds the White House), but I don't expect much of a change on the actual political landscape. They may flip the senate, though. Only need to gain a net of two seats, essentially.

@6

Apparently Democrats aren't that worried about the Supreme Court, or they would have showed up for the 2016 election.

Reagan nominated Kennedy to the Supreme Court. He did vote with the "liberal" judges on occasion, but his votes this week show that he is clearly a conservative.

Why did Dan think Kennedy was a liberal?
Did anybody else read this before it was posted, or do they not have editors at The Stranger?

@16 Hey you know 'there isn't any difference between the parties' (said the fringe left chucklehead who pays about as much attention to politics as he does to the latest developments in orthodontics).

More fallout from 2016. Gee, who could have SEEN this coming?!

@17

Yeah, I heard some people saying there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans, and I also heard some folks say there was no difference between Hillary and djt.

Those people are dumb as fuck.

There's another stupid thing a lot of people were saying during the run-up to the 2016 election.
" this is the most important election in history!"
Interestingly enough, people are saying that again.
Here's a news flash for anyone out there paying attention:
Every election is important.
Vote.

Trump could nominate his sister Marianne, currently a Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

I look forward to Sawant telling everyone that there is no difference between Hillary Clinton and Trump when Roe v Wade is overturned.

This shouldn't be the surprise people are making it. The majority of the court is their late 60s and up and there are 3 justices who are currently about to be or are 80 years old or older.

Blocading the nomination on the Dem side would play badly, as much as it would feel so good to do it. The timing of the right doing it last time had everything to do with the fact that Obama was lame duck and leaving and Dems had no majority control. Here, we have still no majority control and a President that is in theoretically only halfway through his shitshow of a term. The timing is not with them unless they've got some fancy surprises in the works.

@ 21,

Perhaps some of your ire should be directed at the 53% of heinous white women, who voted for Prezinazi Pu$$ygrabber to oppress and brutalize other women.

Dan are you as happy as I am right now with the Jill Stein and Bernie or Bust Facebook fake news suckers who read their news feeds then railed and flailed and blew our house in? Because I'm not very happy with them ....

@ 24,

And you’re doing what exactly about the 53% of white women who back Twitler?

This one is over the line for me. I'm a huge fan of respecting the process and playing 'fair' politics, but on this one, the Dems are going to have to pull out every play known to man and to invent a few more to stop this appointment from happening before the election.

I'm already a little bit worried that the internal LibDem concessions about how the Supreme Court Justice nominee question will be used in the various campaigns this fall will somehow cost the DNC a few seats in the Senate and they won't win back a majority anyhow in which case, we're really gonna see the GOPs colors.

@ original Andrew

It's only 53% of white women who actually bothered to vote that voted for djt.

I'm more concerned with all the people who decided not to vote in 2016.

You see, white women have been voting Republican for quite some time.
In fact, a larger percentage of white women voted for Mitt Romney than for djt.

In fact, the only Democrat in recent history that didn't lose white women was Bill Clinton.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/04/01/tiny-fey-tells-college-educated-white-women-who-voted-for-trump-you-cant-look-away/

@13 You are 100% correct. There is no delay anymore. You can thank Harry Reid for this.

We all knew Trump would get to remake the court. Still, now that it's happening, I'm feeling like I must vomit.

@Theodore- That's possible if Trump & GOP wait. They won't. Fuck Kennedy for not waiting until winter. But even if it could happen, it would require the Democrats to grow some balls and actually act like they want to win. They won't. Some of them will decide to take the high road and compromise because manners, process, etc. Also I think the blue wave is over estimated. They will pick up some seats. It won't be a landslide.

@Adam, Kennedy was never a liberal. But he was a swing vote, and he prevented the far right from implementing some of the stuff they wanted. For example, we still have gay marriage and abortion rights because he has refused to vote against them. Also, the US has shifted so far to the right that many of Reagan's policies would seem liberal now. For example, his lax stance on abortion, his raising of taxes, his immigration amnesty. I know he did plenty of shitty conservative things too, his foreign policy was brutal and he ushered in both the neoliberal economic era and the rise of evangelical moral politics, but the modern GOP is still to the FAR right of Regan. He's where centrist dems are today.

@26 Welcome to the opposite side of that line. It really doesn't matter what it is that made you realize it, the point is that you are here now. Taking the high road, finding compromise, reaching across the aisle- that doesn't work when the other side is focusing instead on winning by any means. I agree with you though that some asshole liberal democrat is going to uphold the process instead of obstruct. We're all fucked.

Also all you people talking about how pissed off you are at this or that group, I'll tell you another target to spit on. Fuck Ruth Bader Ginsburg who could've retired early in Obama's second term when she was in her goddamn 80s already. But no. That fucking generation doesn't give a fuck about anyone but themselves. I bet she will also retire during Trump's term, or die of old age on the bench- it's all the same to the GOP. He will get her appointment too.

@29, what you think mcconnell and his ilk wouldn't have gone out of their way to fuck over a replacement for RBG as well?

Fuck it. In reality things need to get a lot worse before they get any better. When your social security and medicare are gone then maybe we'll make some changes.

@30 I said early in Obama's second term. I'm sure they would've tried to find a way to block a replacement, but it would've been much harder for them to succeed. But you know what makes it really easy for them to select her replacement? For her to hang on for a couple more years in her fucking 80s and then hand them her seat without a fight.

What we're going to see next is Democrats rolling over and letting GOP have their way because of the process and the high road. Hopefully I'm wrong and they've grown a spine but I'm not hopeful.

This system is dead. We should build something different.

Well, at least now all the right-wingers who've been making some headway with gays by taking the Nobody Cares About That Anymore line won't be able to use that any more. We'll see which ones are revealed to have sincerely though things like marriage overturn a dead letter and which will be revealed to have been duplicitous all along.

@29 I still think those things work. But this one is so explicitly and inarguably hypocritical that there's no rational argument (in my book) that McConnell and Trump will act in good faith. I still believe in "the high road", acting in good faith, etc and will continue to advocate for that in cases where there is a necessary amount of ambiguity. But this one is not ambiguous, and I find the things that people are worried about to be realistic, if not likely, outcomes.

The precedent for restraint is gone. When Democrats are back in power, we should demand intellectual diversity on the court: pack it.

Trump is like a virus that has found the weakness in our political system, but it's not clear whether it's the really bad kind that can kill you, or a weakened version, like a vaccination, that makes you come out stronger after some soreness and a mild fever. If we survive this bout, and reasonable people are ever allowed to get back in control, we're going to need some new constitutional amendments to work as antibodies to guarantee that this never happens again.

By the way, can we start calling any Trump nominee "The newest member of the Russian Delegation to the Supreme Court?

There will be a new Justice before the midterms. Everyone saying the Dems should block or that the GOP should wait until after the midterms are misinformed. Obama nominated Elena Kagan in May of 2010 so there is no precedence to delay due to midterms. Former Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid ended the filibuster rule so you only need a 51 votes to nominate Justices instead of 60 so there is no way the Dems can block.

Lastly, Bush had two appointments, Obama had two appointments and now Trump will have two appointments so its not the end of the world.

@25

That 53% of white women? Not sure I take your point, but in the words of the 50 year old Swedish man who writes Taylor Swift's songs, haters gonna hate. Not so much you can do about them.

The "or Busters" et al. though, there's a pack of narcissists who ultimately decided it was more important to go down with the my my my important ideas self-gratification ship than do what was completely obviously in the best interests of protecting society's most vulnerable.

I say this as a person who flipped my primary precinct to Bernie by speaking to how ideally his core values and policies align with my own ideals. And I did so without trashing Hillary, and by overtly noting that whomever won would need our support. I was proud that my precinct asked me to be their delegate and delighted to serve Bernie Sanders. He would have been a great president.

When Clinton won I grumbled and whined for a week, and then sucked it up and got on board, because making sure that poor people and brown people and gay people and women and everyone else who gets routinely skull fucked by the good old US of A weren't gonna get it in both eyesockets at the same time seemed a lot more important than my ego and identity and how they connect to ideology.

I'm truly pissed off at the peope on the left who couldn't get the fuck over themselves. They got fucking clowned by the Russians but will never cop to it. They walked onto the used car lot, woke up the next morning with mopeds in their carports and cum dried on their backs. And they'll never admit that's not exactly how they drew it up.

From just one of these asshats I'd love to hear "I thought she was going to win anyway, so I banged on my principles because I could back away from the argument. I couldn't stand looking like I lost, and I didn't want to compromise my persona as a radical. I really thought she was gonna win so I chose to indulge myself. I fucked up and I'm sorry." That though is what these types say 15 years after the fact. Right now we all get a brutal conservative regressive legal system for the rest of our fucking lives. Thanks a fucking lot.

@ 39,

I’m pointing out that lashing out at your allies—many of whom are working hard to end this nightmare—is not the way to go.

Tdumbp voters are to blame for Tdumbp.

Alright! The end of the world is coming - as it will for a great many people today, tomorrow, and everyday after that until no one will know or care about The Stranger, Dan Savage or Justice Kennedy- who most readers probably have actually never read beyond a two line blurb in The Stranger - so really who cares. He’s 81and he’s done his bit and earned his retirement. Have a ride on a “swig” or just have a swig of something to make you feel better today.

EmmaLiz @29 RBG may have seen her age as a way to motivate voters to get off their asses and vote in 2016. Larger electorate usually helps the Dems.

@38 there's no requirement for precedent

I do worry that a GOP electorate that was demotivated by Trump — as they were with Bush in 2006 — will now feel obliged to turn out anyway in November.

Vote as if your lives depend on it. For many of us, it might.

@40 - I agree he's put in his time on the court, BUT he surely realizes that by retiring now he is handing the power of a lifetime Supreme Court justice nomination to the biggest fucking idiot ever put in charge of anything bigger than a lemonade stand. It is crystal clear that the Occupant is going to do what Pence tells him to, which is to appoint someone who will put us one step closer to the clusterfuck that is theocracy. By quitting now, Kennedy is saying is is OK with that. SAD.

@38 - Harry Reid did not end the SCOTUS filibuster. Mitch McConnell did on April 6, 2017. You can read about it on Neil Gorsuch’s Wikipedia page.

Mitch McConnell broke precedent by not only refusing hearings or a vote for a year on a Supreme Court nominee — one his on party had previously said would be the only acceptable consensus candidate — but he also refused to consider almost EVERY judicial nominee for TWO YEARS, resulting in Trump inheriting the most federal judicial vacancies in history.

And let me preemptively refute the so-called “Biden Rule,” a completely mythical creation fabricated by Mitch McConnell. No such rule ever existed. McConnell created it through a deliberate distortion and misinterpretation of a speech Biden made that was never even discussed as a rule, much less adopted as one. (The speech asked Reagan to nominate a Kennedy-like moderate rather than a Bork-like arch-conservative should another vacancy occur in his final year, which never happened. It wasn’t about not nominating anyone. It was never a rule — and even if it had been, Obama abided by it by nominating a moderate instead of a firebrand.

Liberal tears are such sweet nectar.

@40 great, they burned down the house and now are working harder than anyone sifting the rubble. Thanks I guess?

@46: Thank you. You are very motivating. And it's nice that you show who you are so very clearly. It will make what needs to be done about you more pleasant.

@Erica, this is overly generous. Obama asked her to retire. She did not. And if she thinks it's a good deal to gamble with decades of the future of this country and millions of lives in order to get out the vote when she could guarantee those things by simply retiring and allowing Obama to appoint a young liberal woman who is sure to live for decades more, then she's a blooming idiot and had no business there in the first place. No, that's not what happened. What happened is that this generation refuses to step away. Look at them- so many are CEOs, Congressmen, etc. They are rich as can be, have secure pensions on top of that, and still refuse to retire or make way for anyone younger. They don't care about anyone but themselves. It's all about them. RBG should have retired. She didn't because of selfishness and ego. She wouldn't want to be bored, she felt she still had good things to do. Other people could've done those good things- the moment wasnt about her. She made it that way. Like many rich liberals, she thought Hilary winning was a sure thing. I hope she doesn't die before Trump loses, but my guess is that she will eventually just as selfishly retire. People in that generation have no sense of service to others. Fuck RBG and Fuck Breyer too now that I think of it. Why in gods name do we need people to hold on to their seats well into their 70s? These assholes are so self-centered they probably think they are immortal.

@31 -- ""Fuck it. In reality things need to get a lot worse before they get any better. When your social security and medicare are gone then maybe we'll make some changes.""

Do not count on the strategy of "miserablism". It may have played out that way in the Great Depression, but people had more solidarity then, and the Gov't had notably less "riot control" ability, besides actually shooting people.

The US has been fairly effective at keeping everyone either just well off enough not to riot, or too socially controlled/divided to organize. Or they infiltratethe organizing, à la Cointelpro, (which has been disseminated to local police departments over the years). And they also have an impressive array of crowd control weapons, tactics & tech.

If you're hoping a newly desperate populace to rise up en masse and fight for their rights & needs, it's going to be a helluva battle we'll have to pitch. Not impossible though.

@47: I'm right there with you. I kept a conversation I had with some of the Busters in my life two summers ago and every single thing I warned them would happen has happened. Back then I got bullshit equivalencies and fum fumming when I told them they better be ready to hide Muslims and immigrants or ferry women across state lines to get their healthcare, not to mention ponying up for the medical GoFundMe campaigns their uninsured friends would be putting up.
You know what I hear from them now? How their fucking Bitcoin is doing and how much house they can get for their money in Burien, and isn't it nice that they can work from home.
Are they marching or protesting? No they are fucking not. And it would be nice if at the very least they could cop to their part in the dumpster fire we are facing. But I'm not holding my breath.

I was a Bernie supporter in the primary. I reluctantly voted for Hilary in the general.

Even though I disagree with Bernie or Busters strategy, they make more sense to me than liberals who continue to blame them rather than the Dems for the Dem loss. I never see liberals actually address their main concerns. You all sound either uninformed or sociopathic. Which is it? Do you honestly not know how evil the Dems are or do you not care so long as they are better to Americans? Because if you do know how evil they are, you might still vote for them (I do) as they are less evil, but you sure as hell would understand why others don't and you'd be blaming them for being evil rather than others for choosing to try to break a system that gives them only evil vs less evil.

Let aside the fact that the people who protest voted Stein or refused to vote POTUS at all are a tiny fraction of the reasons Hilary lost and yet the ones you focus on. What I really want to know is how liberals go around being so smug all the time while ignoring foreign policy, immigration, wall street, etc, and yet repeat shit like "but her emails..." Is it deliberate pretense at ignorance or do you just really not know why people are opposed to her? Because if you do know, you'll get farther by acknowledging it.

Have some awareness of the actual choice people are making. If you are not aware of US foreign policy or if you don't think it matters, then educate yourself and maybe you'll better understand people who sat out the election. Those of us who are aware have to decide how to act. For some of us, that means going to a poll and casting a vote for someone who is evil then going home and living with the fact that you have voted to continue the US death machine. For others, that means protesting the choice in the first place. I personally disagree with this second action, but I understand it far more than I understand pretending that US imperialism is not a thing or that it's not important or that there is no sympathy for people who don't want to vote for a hawk.

My anger is with the system that refuses to give people a choice other than how many millions of lives they want to be complicit in destroying. If your anger is with individuals who protest this choice, then honestly sit the fuck down and consider who you consider human and who you don't.

Likewise with immigration. Liberals are outraged and paying attention now. Think this shit wasn't going down with Obama? Hilary defended it during the debates. Just because you weren't paying attention then doesn't mean none of us were. Did you pay attention to what she did in Libya? Honduras? Syria? The things she voted for as senator- which by the way included the formation of ICE. Her corporate ties and Wall Street connections actually matter. The main reason Democrats do not respond to the grassroots is that they get billions from corporations. If you want to fix this problem, why not focus on that? Instead you are blaming people who would not vote for someone who receives money from corporations. They purchase her policy. These things are connected. We maintain these wars and occupations because they are the foundation of US hegemony and wealth. They create massive wealth inequality and refugee/immigration crises. None of this will change so long as our government is run by corporations. This is what people mean when they say Reps and Dems are the same. It's hyperbolic- the Reps are more evil- but at its core, it's true that they serve the same masters. People who look at this and correctly realize there is nothing there worth supporting should not be the target of your anger. The Reps, Dems and their corporate masters should be.

@44, @47 and basic anyone who reads this and doesnt know how their own government functions.

“The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the nation. Its decisions set precedents that all other courts then follow, and no lower court can ever supersede a Supreme Court decision. In fact, not even Congress or the president can change, reject or ignore a Supreme Court decision.

American law operates under the doctrine of “stare decisis”, which means that prior decisions should be maintained -- even if the current court would otherwise rule differently -- and that lower courts must abide by the prior decisions of higher courts. The idea is based on a belief that government needs to be relatively stable and predictable.

This means that overturning a Supreme Court decision is extremely difficult. There are technically three ways it can happen:

Congressional Statute
If the Supreme Court has struck down all or part of a federal statute, Congress can go back and adjust the statute to their liking. This is often used to supplement or augment Court decisions. For example, the Supreme Court decided in the 2000 case FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp that the FDA didn't have the authority to regulate tobacco. Congress changed that with the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. Until a case concerning this federal statute comes before the Supreme Court, Congress has the final say.
Constitutional Amendment
The Supreme Court has the final word on the meaning of the Constitution. But there is a process of amending the Constitution. Article Five of the Constitution lays out the specific process. Amendments can be proposed by Congress, with two-thirds approval in both the House and the Senate. States can also propose them with a two-thirds majority, and the holding of a convention for proposing the amendments. Once proposed, the amendment must be ratified by a three-fourths majority of the states. The voting to ratify or reject the proposed amendment can take place in state legislatures or state conventions. Since the adoption of the Bill of Rights, 17 amendments have been ratified. One principle example of a Constitutional amendment overturning a Supreme Court case is the Sixteenth Amendment. In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, the Supreme Court declared a progressive federal income tax unconstitutional. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified — completely negating this decision.
The Supreme Court
And finally, the Supreme Court can overrule itself. This is probably the simplest, if most unlikely, avenue. The most famous example of this is Brown v. Board of Education. This landmark case declared racial segregation unconstitutional in public schools. This case directly contradicts a case decided almost 60 years prior called Plessy v. Ferguson, which began the legal standard of "separate but equal" for segregation. But the Supreme Court doesn't change its mind often. The Brown v. Board decision was issued almost 60 years after Plessy.

With the current courts docket quite full in this day and age, it is highly unlikely any reversals of past decisions will be made to “punish” any group or groups of people. Kennedy has done his time and he is not the only human keeping the legal system together as we know it.

Mr Thornhill - Surely the four already there and the new arrival will all be salivating in hopes of getting to write the opinion overturning Obergefell, and Roe even more so. Immortality!

On the other hand, as Justice K surely doesn't want to lose the jewel in his crown, I find it plausible that he's confident the big O isn't going away. Now I could believe that Mr T might even sincerely believe he could tell the Supremes not to overturn marriage and that they'd fall in line, but I don't see any justices seriously believing that that would make it safe to retire. Most likely would seem that he has reason to believe one or more of the Four will prevent that reversal. Perhaps it's a point of principle, or perhaps a mere private assurance. I just wonder whether we'll see an Alito or a Gorsuch autobiography in a couple of decades with a major section devoted to How I Tricked Justice Kennedy Into Retirement. At least his performance in such things as C-Span's Mock Trial of Hamlet would seem to make his being duped less likely.

@52 You can fill up a lot of square inches of page but when you want to hold forth about 'how evil the Dems are' I'd say you are the one who sounds rather poorly informed. What exactly did Hillary Clinton do in Syria, Honduras, Libya? Do you have any idea?

@52 (EmmaLiz) - yes. Thank you, and more. Add in the growing prison industry, the continuing war on people of color, etc., etc. And the hubris and corruption of the DNC, and everyone who voted Hillary in the primary ostensibly for strategic reasons (because everyone loves Hillary?), but really for economic reasons ...

Election after election, we blame splinter factions of the left, because they didn’t get on board with a party that less and less cares for, benefits, or represents them. Consistently taking the disenfranchised left for granted may work short-term, but it’s a Godawful strategy long-term, and a major reason for this country’s decades-long drift to the right.

I held my nose and voted Hillary (the lesser evil), but I also understand the folks who refused. They aren’t the enemy. We all may bear a part in this, but I’d sooner blame the right - and liberals, look to yourselves.

@Original Andrew, @dvs99, and @Lissa (re @46): I fucking love you all! Keep on rocking the conversation threads and telling it like it is.

I've always thought of Kennedy as at least a thoughtful and basically decent justice, even though I often disagreed with him. He seemed to have a good grasp of logic and a relatively open mind. I think that he would have been remembered that way by a lot of people, even liberals.

But not now.

Handing the chance to pick his replacement to the toddler in the Oval Office (under Mike Pence's instructions) shows that at the end of the day he puts party over country, and doesn't really care about the consequences. At 81, he is not going to live to see the worst effects of Trump and the newly conservative Court. A lot of us are, and we won't forget Kennedy's role in making shit happen.

I hope he can live with himself in his retirement.

@5- have no fear. the swinger is still in the Oval Office.

@ROThornhill

Justice Roy Moore won't give a fuck about stare decisis.

When you get thrown in a death camp with a pink triangle on your lapel you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

@52: "The main reason Democrats do not respond to the grassroots is that they get billions from corporations. If you want to fix this problem, why not focus on that?"

Bingo.
Till we get the big Money the fuck OUT of politics,
We are fucked.
And not in a good way.

But Jimmy Dore never has to say "President Hillary Clinton", and that's what's important.

@57: Thank you Auntie:)
@56: Nope. I refuse to let people who should have known better, who fucking did know better, off the hook.
Busters didn't want Clinton in the White House? Well, this what that looks like and now that they've gotten their heart's desire I'm not going to let them forget it, particularly the ones who aren't doing everything in their power to work to put out the dumpster fire they helped set.
Which is not to say that I'm letting Dems off scott free. Wishy washy compromises and hand wringing about civility? I am not here for that either.

@52: Thank you EmmaLiz.

@52 EmmaLiz and @61 kristofarian: Bingo, and thank you both, too, for nailing it.
@56: Um...I know you said you voted for Hillary (so why did you hold your nose?), but....anyone who otherwise voted for Jill Stein, or a write-in for anyone other than Hillary Clinton, or not at all (a.k.a. "meh-sayers") voted for Mein Trumpfy. I'm with Lissa @64.
@64 Lissa: Hear, hear! I second your comment: "I refuse to let people who should have known better, who fucking did know better off the hook." Bravo! If Hillary was #45 in the White House as she rightfully should be, we wouldn't be in this horrifically RepubliKKKan-fucked-up idiotic mess now.
@66 Doofus in Shoreline: Please read @52, @61, and @64. If you can't read and / or "don't know and don't care" then Just. STFU. Already. You and all other Mein Trumpfy apologists are part of the problem.

READ UP ON THE FORMER PRESIDENTS ACT (2012)!! This affects impeachment of 45, to an extent, Barron turns 16 in March 2022, so it might matter more to Trump, and his multitude of enemies, if he is a sitting or former president, for his boy's protection.

"The bill [FPA] also alters the protection of children of former presidents. Under the old statute, children were to be protected for up to 10 years after their parents’ service or when they turned 16, whichever occurred first. Under the new act, it will protect minor children until they turn 16." (from Politico)

@64: Pro-tip: "Shut up and vote the way you're told, you miserable traitorous whiners, this is all your fault" is what got us 2016. I don't recommend it as a vote-getting strategy.