More than three decades later, Judge Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, has been nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump and faces a political culture even more caustic than the one that destroyed his mother’s public career. Like her, he is a committed conservative and can expect strong opposition, but where she was bold and brash, he has advanced to the pinnacle of the judiciary with understatement and polish.
February 4, 2017
"You should never have resigned. You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?"
What Neil Gorsuch said to his mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, when he was 15 years old, as reported in the NYT piece, "In Fall of Gorsuch’s Mother, a Painful Lesson in Politicking."
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Anne Gorsuch Burford resigned from her job as the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan after being cited in contempt of Congress.
In other news, Eric Holder didn't resign after being held in contempt of congress "over his failure to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal, the first time Congress has taken such a dramatic move against a sitting Cabinet official.
"The vote was 255-67, with 17 Democrats voting in support of a criminal contempt resolution, which authorizes Republicans leaders to seek criminal charges against Holder. This Democratic support came despite a round of behind-the-scenes lobbying by senior White House and Justice officials - as well as pressure from party leaders - to support Holder."
I don't know how it happened, but it's nice to see a generally fair piece about a prominent conservative from the NYT.
A forgotten name from the past. Don't really remember what the controversy over Anne Gorsuch was though. Not surprised though to go and read that the Democrat Congress obstructed her confirmation to EPA and that they then hounded her and harassed her until she was finally fed up and left the post.
A little pre-Borking is what happened.
Maybe he's just a douchebag.
The opposition should reject as much as what their opponents obstructed.
Chinless McConnell says it was ok to hold up a nomination for a year? Well, give the Democrats a year to hold this ideologue up. We should have hope that it might not even take that long for King Twitter Thumbs to get impeached.
The NYTimes ought to focus on the jurisprudence of Judge Gorsuch. What opinions has he written? What do said opinions say about his judicial philosophy?
Instead, you get this type of obscure political tripe that nobody cares about, except those on the hysterical Left who desperately need some basis, any basis, to reject Gorsuch.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president ordered."
So you want a guy who apparently follows the Nixonian dictum of legality as defined by whether the president can get away with it.
Sorry. Not happening. King Twitter Thumbs already has enough lackeys to unquestioningly fall in line at the drop of a hat.
If what the President told her to do was illegal and she did it, she was right to resign in shame. That her son didn't recognize this doesn't refelect well on him, but he was only 15.
"The first woman to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Ms. Burford argued that states were better custodians of resources and that market forces would bring more discipline to regulation. As she cut spending and pared back rules, critics called her an enemy of the environment. Her downfall came when, at White House direction, she refused to turn over documents related to a toxic-waste program. Congress cited her for contempt."
She got royally screwed by Reagan.
Chinless McConnell says it was ok to hold up a nomination for a year? Well, give the Democrats a year to hold this ideologue up. We should have hope that it might not even take that long for King Twitter Thumbs to get impeached.
You're eroding Hatch's desire to not nuke the filibuster. PLEASE do so to Gorsuch. When the filibuster is nuked and the next SCOTUS nominee is up --- SCOTUS Justice Ted Cruz.
Thank you Harry Reid.
Instead, you get this type of obscure political tripe that nobody cares about, except those on the hysterical Left who desperately need some basis, any basis, to reject Gorsuch.
Hysterical? Desperate?
Chinless McConnell's gang held up a nominee for a year, just to wait things out for the succession process to proceed.
We don't know what could happen in a year. Donny Tinyhands might get impeached. Or someone could shoot him down on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and get away with it. You never know.
Give it a year. What's the rush? How much more unpopular do you think that Trump can get?
If what the President told her to do was illegal and she did it, she was right to resign in shame.
Only if she's a Republican. When Dems do it, such as in the first comment here, it's "noble".
Again, your side decided to kill off a lot of government norms and you're bitching. You're now trying to kill off SOCIETAL norms (the whole "political violence is always bad" belief) and you will be even LESS happy when it takes root.
Chinless McConnell's gang held up a nominee for a year, just to wait things out for the succession process to proceed.
And it worked out and the Dems were, as usual, rejected. Just sit in the back and shut up. You drove the car into a ditch and somebody has to fix it.
You're eroding Hatch's desire to not nuke the filibuster. PLEASE do so to Gorsuch. When the filibuster is nuked and the next SCOTUS nominee is up --- SCOTUS Justice Ted Cruz.
Behold the way the right-wing political mind more comfortably operates in the form of threats.
An agenda opposed by most of the country and an even a RINO of a president with an approval rating barely breaching 40%.
I guess this is the way you have to think when you desire to hostilely hold hostage the majority of a nation's population to your horrible ideas and fixations.
I detect a high anxiety level in the comments section today.
And it worked out and the Dems were, as usual, rejected. Just sit in the back and shut up. You drove the car into a ditch and somebody has to fix it.
This is why the American people hate you and you need a progressive authoritarian RINO to win. Because you're a bunch of assholes you have a hostile need to rule a country that rejects your ideas even when you can't see how much better 2016 was compared to 2008. You're seriously like the anti-results party.
Trump couldn't have won without getting Obama voters. Let's see how the rest of your shitshow Republican ideologue cranks do.
If what the President told her to do was illegal and she did it, she was right to resign in shame.
Since that is NOT what happened, what really is the point of this baseless hypothetical?
The White House asserted executive privilege over the documents. At that point, it was not her call. And she deferred to that assertion. After all, any power she or any other officer has is delegated by the Executive.
It was when the White House withdrew its assertion of privilege that she resigned, not out of protest against the president, but in disgust and being fed up with the way Congress treated her. President Reagan thereafter tried to appoint her to a largely symbolic advisory post, but even then the Democrats like sharks smelling blood, went to war to stop her. So, she said, "OK, I'm done. You can all GFY."
She died at 62 of cancer.
The son returns in triumph.
BillySaturday: "I detect a high anxiety level in the comments section today."
Indeed.
I suspect this will continue as long as the left remains intellectually and morally inert and continues lashing out with ever greater ferocity due to their powerlessness.
Perhaps you could set a good example for your fellow Marxists? But then again, if you could, you wouldn't be a Marxist, would you?
Alas.
She died at 62 of cancer.
The son returns in triumph.
If only more Republicans could sacrifice their mothers for political success. Oh, wait... There goes Medicare and SSI.
Did she get the kind of cancer that's started by an environmental pollutant? That would be poetic.
CC: "Did she get the kind of cancer that's started by an environmental pollutant? That would be poetic."
Nonsense!
She got the kind that Romney gives women! Everyone knows that.
I suspect this will continue as long as the left remains intellectually and morally inert and continues lashing out with ever greater ferocity due to their powerlessness.
If only moral action was defined by a need to control things and to gerrymander and intimidate the press and require lobbyists to inform your agenda while striking back at corporatism by running a narcissistic billionaire who claims that that's what makes him independent.
Why can't Democrats put their faith in narcissistic blowhards the same way Republicans can? I guess it's just not fair.
CC, what has happened to Bernie since the election?
Here he is, the rightful Dem nominee who had a chance to hold the Midwest and had it yanked away from him by the dem establishment powers that be, and he basically curls up in a ball and does nothing nor says anything about it.
Where is the outrage? Where is the pushback?
CC: "If only moral action was defined by a need to control things and to gerrymander and intimidate the press and require lobbyists to inform your agenda while striking back at corporatism by running a narcissistic billionaire who claims that that's what makes him independent"
We sir, are men of action.
Run-on sentences do not become us.
CC: "Why can't Democrats put their faith in narcissistic blowhards the same way Republicans can? I guess it's just not fair"
Life is not fair.
5 cents please.
Is it 35 Republican governors these days? How many state houses are controlled by Republicans?
Commander Crankshaft should explain how the voters are rejecting Republicans, again.
Birkel: "Commander Crankshaft should explain how the voters are rejecting Republicans, again."
CC/R&B knows perfectly well why they are and he actually spoke to that quite effectively in the primaries.
But he and those like him were ignored by the dem establishment and so we have Trump!
It's got to be tough for CC since he was onto this along time ago, unlike say, "lifelong republican" Chuck.
Its interesting that what seems would be the most effective policy for the left seems to be off the table - begging forgiveness from the Trump electorate.
A great number of magnificent acts of public penance are called for. Love the redneck.
Humility, not rage, is the path to reconciliation.
I think Bernie's actually speaking out quite a bit these days. It doesn't get big media coverage - but then again, when have they not put him under a blackout?
So were those 35 Republican governors gerrymandered?
Call Gorsuch a polished Conservative if you chose. He does seem in love with the theory that the Judiciary is a separate but equal branch of Government argument dealing with the Executive.
But I see that Gorsuch has the independent Western streak, which the Western States seem to produce, like in Sandra Day OConnor. It is a stance that always finds a vehicle for their Westerner's position to straighten out an Easterner's ways.
But DJT is an Easterner. And the Washington State, Bush Appointee Federal Judge is the one that just did that trick to an Easterner President.
Anne Gorsuch otherwise also was in an impossible situation.
When EPA was first created, the Washington genii decided to do it on the cheap by transferring employees from other agencies so as "not to increase the Federal work force."
So, of course the Corpse of the Eggineers and other agencies used the opportunity to encourage the worst of their deadheads to transfer over, and Oh boy!
It took more than a generation for these bottom of the barrel types to retire or die off, and of course they had trained another generation to follow in their footsteps.
If you think the EPA is bad now with all the environmental warriors, in Anne Gorsuch's time it was just about unmanageable from just plain stupidity, sloth, ignorance, and general incompetence.
Why can't Democrats put their faith in narcissistic blowhards the same way Republicans can? I guess it's just not fair.
2/4/17, 2:51 PM
Dafuq? Jesus, ritmo, open your eyes!
Blogger Drago said...
CC, what has happened to Bernie since the election?
He got his. $600,000 lakeside dachas don't buy themselves.
As part of its campaign to make its brand equal to "violent and obnoxious," the left sends us Commander Crankshaft! (Though who in their right mind would put him in command of anything is difficult to assess.)
@Bad LT, I think we can safely assume that Bernie is unaware that the socialism he espouses would confiscate two of his three houses, since no one needs more than one while other people are going homeless.
Big Mike, I've found that even the most woolly-minded socialist idealist types of all ages suddenly get sharp and wily when it comes to the prospect of actually taking something away from them. Funny, huh?
There's a high level of anxiety everywhere in the left lately. Facebook has simmered down some. Maybe too many people got unfriended. DemocraticUnderground.com runs along just fine. Same as it ever was. Twitter, well, it's gonna die soon.
This is going to get worse. The first real scandal of any kind will light the fuse.
I'm amazed at the degree of hypocrisy it takes to say that "the right-wing political mind more comfortably operates in the form of threats" (2:35pm) when someone suggested that if Democrats succeed in blocking Gorsuch they may end up with a justice they like even less such as Ted Cruz (that's a "threat"?), in between wishing that "someone could shoot [Trump] down on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and get away with it" (2:32pm) and hoping that Gorsuch's mother died of cancer at 62 because of an environmental pollutant (2:48pm). All in 16 minutes! It makes the accusation of threatening look like a clear case of projection.
She got royally screwed by Reagan.
Seems that way. In her 1986 book, Are You Tough Enough?, there's this:
When congressional criticism about the EPA began to touch the presidency, Mr. Reagan solved his problem by jettisoning me and my people, people [whose] only ‘crime’ was loyal service, following orders. I was not the first to receive his special brand of benevolent neglect, a form of conveniently looking the other way, while his staff continues to do some very dirty work.
even when you can't see how much better 2016 was compared to 2008.
The fact that you believe this idea is true for most of America, instead of just deep blue America, is a large part of why you lost.
The fact that you believe this idea is true for most of America, instead of just deep blue America, is a large part of why you lost.
I didn't run for anything. What did YOU run for, or WOULD you run for, you faceless weenie? Oh, that's right. Nothing. No, people aren't looking to raise the unemployment rate from 4.5% back to the 10% YOU got it to.
They voted against (or didn't come out to vote for) Goldwater-supporting HIllary and that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. They're not down with your stupid cause.
"Why can't Democrats put their faith in narcissistic blowhards the same way Republicans can?
They just finished losing with one.
They just finished losing with one.
To an even bigger one.
buwaya:
Hate Love's Abortion.
They're trapped in a twilight of their own creation.
Twilight Tone
Birkel said...
So were those 35 Republican governors gerrymandered?
Absolutely. Have you seen the borders and the population differentials of the states? And how underrepresented blacks are in North Dakota? We need a court to clean that up.
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