why kick that beehive before it’s ACTUALLY necessary?

Because by the time it’s actually necessary, you’re fucked. Case in point, if Sotomayor had resigned last year, her replacement would have sailed through, and there could be a 40 year old solidly liberal justice in her place, penning equally liberal opinions and poised to continue doing so for decades.

But she didn’t, so if she acts now, her replacement would get caught up in “senate can’t nominate in election years for reasons” BS. Big political fight, but one that’s winnable since Dems ultimately hold the Senate.

If she puts it off yet further, she would have to continue for the next 4, possibly 8+ years. And maybe by that time the democrats don’t have both the presidency and senate anymore, so her replacement is a less liberal consensus candidate.

Failing to think strategically is an extremely bad idea when it comes to institutions like the Supreme Court.

You haven’t put any thought into the situation.

SC justices are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. Both are currently held by the democrats, the latter narrowly. Both are likely to flip next year. Sotomayor is over 70, diabetic, and travels with a medic.

If she wanted to do the right thing for the causes she believes in, she should have resigned during the past one or two years. Biden would have been able to replace her with a younger, equally liberal justice. But she didn’t and probably won’t, so if she dies anytime in the next 4 years (or 8 years if the Rs win the presidential election after that) then the court goes 7-2 and will remain conservative-dominated for decades.

Yes, the best time for her to step down would have been earlier (same issue with Biden dropping out). But the second best time is now.

Not perish.

To look virtuous without contributing anything substantive towards your cause.

At this point, the one substantive thing Sotomayor can do is resign and make way for an ideologically aligned replacement. And this, she doesn’t do.

If she’s so concerned, she should resign. Let Biden nominate her replacement.

By staying on, she’s basically signalling she doesn’t care about the court going 7-2 after she drops dead during Trump’s second term. No lessons learned from the RBG fiasco. What’s the point of writing these long eloquent dissents that never end up swaying anything?

US presidents acting in their official capacity were always immune to prosecution for murder. Johnson and Nixon wiped out entire villages in Vietnam, never held accountable.

Polling of hypotheticals is notoriously flaky. If a fresh D comes in as nominee, all the “have to beat Trump” talking points will still be there, and all the “this guy has dementia” talking points will be wiped away. It’s hard to imagine any other nominee having negatives that could be worse than credible accusations of dementia.

Edit: except for Harris.

According to Biden,

• Trump is a once in a generation threat to democracy that must be defeated at any cost.
• He, Biden, an 81 year old guy with even lower approval ratings than Trump, should be the guy who goes up against Trump. Nobody else on the D bench should be allowed to try.

Great logic.

Oh by the way, there are no signs that Sotomayor is planning to retire either…

Oh good, I guess Biden has absolutely nothing to worry about then…

Okay, so he’s still able to read off a teleprompter and seem “forceful”. Now put him in front of the editorial board of any major newspaper for an hour long interview.

From the individual consumer’s point of view, it totally makes sense to keep guzzling gasoline. US gas prices are far cheaper than elsewhere in the developed world, even after inflation. US carmakers have priced EVs at premium price points, and the charging infrastructure is mediocre. Add to this Biden’s lock-out of EV imports and efforts to keep gas prices down ahead of the elections.

Anyway, it’s a difficult set of problems, but I would not characterize Biden administration’s climate record as being “full of wins”. They’re like a startup that brags about receiving lots of VC funding (big wins!), but flailing about when it comes to delivering an actual product.

The Biden admin’s main selling point on climate is bragging about how much funding they’ve gotten from Congress. That’s a legislative achievement, but the execution part – which is the point of their branch of government – has been incredibly rocky. You got $7.5B in funding for EV charging yielding 8 EV chargers nationwide. And Biden has slapped big tariffs on Chinese solar panels and EVs, so that renewables will get more expensive and American carmakers who are skeptical about the EV transition will get to drag their feet even more.

Obviously, there’s a more disturbing background at play here, but churches shouldn’t be untaxed in the first instance. The dude literally said to render unto Caesar, etc. etc.

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TLDR: Unskew those polls! Media biased against Democrats! No one could possibly vote for a convicted felon! Biden is fine!

Sheesh.

Just Google for Mihoyo and Energy Singularity. They invested $65M back in 2022.

This is the one that’s partly funded by Mihoyo, using the absurd amounts of money they made with Genshin Impact.

The power of the anime waifu, in the palm of your hand…

Saul Goodman probably would…

Had.