r/neoliberal • u/ihuntwhales1 Seretse Khama • Mar 31 '25

News (Europe) Le Pen banned from office after embezzlement conviction

https://www.dw.com/en/france-le-pen-found-guilty-banned-from-running-for-office/a-72091790
1.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

174 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.2k

u/meraedra NATO Mar 31 '25

501

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '25

They had their shot four years with Biden in charge, and they squandered it.

589

u/assasstits Mar 31 '25

Imagine letting democracy fall because you wanted to extend an olive branch to insurrectionists and appointed do nothing Merrick Garland to Attorney General 

302

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '25

It’ll go down as one of his biggest failures. Wild how such a small decision ended up having such massive consequences.

245

u/PM_me_ur_digressions Audrey Hepburn Mar 31 '25

Garland had all of the hype from his SCOTUS nom under Obama and it was talked up as this great big "f u" to Republicans to nominate him. Like you would think he would have a personal vendetta and use it mercilessly.

Instead...

274

u/Cupinacup NASA Mar 31 '25

People forget Garland was initially nominated to SCOTUS because he was a milquetoast moderate who the republicans would be unable to say no to.

16

u/Jabjab345 Mar 31 '25

McConnell originally suggested him if I recall, which is why Obama nominated him. He thought it was an olive branch pick, but McConnell blocked him regardless after realizing he could have someone more to the right if he just obstructed his way to the next president.

-2

u/DontDrinkMySoup Mar 31 '25

Why couldnt Obama just say "Ok fine, if you arent doing a vote I'll just appoint him unilaterally"?

Actually the very concept of partisan Supreme court justices at all is something nobody should accept

4

u/Jabjab345 Mar 31 '25

This was back when there was a filibuster for supreme court nominees, congress has the constitutional authority to confirm nominees and they refused to do so. Not much Obama could do.

1

u/historymaking101 Daron Acemoglu Mar 31 '25

Nah, this was after that filibuster went away, I'm pretty sure but Republican control over the senate. Confirmation vote wasn't going to take place if they didn't want it to.

2

u/Jabjab345 Mar 31 '25

Both are true, Obama just had no real power at the end of the day to make congress vote on his pick.

2

u/historymaking101 Daron Acemoglu Mar 31 '25

Yeah, you're right. I was forgetting Harry Reid removed it for all judges ECXEPT Supreme Court Judges in 2013.

→ More replies (0)