Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect thinks Mitch McConnell should confirm Trump’s nominee now, without waiting to get the name from Trump. Hearings will be a waste of time. No one will deliberate. McConnell has the votes to appoint anyone Trump chooses, no matter how wacky or intemperate.
Meyerson writes:
What’s delaying Mitch McConnell? With Lamar Alexander, Charles Grassley, Cory Gardner, and now Mitt Romney pledging to support whomever Donald Trump anoints as our next Supreme Court justice, Mitch has the votes to move forward right now.
What’s he waiting for? Hearings? Just more senatorial and nominee babble; who needs them? Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s funeral? He’s already expressed his regrets at her passing, or at least at the institution of death more generally.
OK, OK, I get it. Trump hasn’t chosen a nominee yet. But that shouldn’t pose an obstacle to the 51 yes-men and -women who’ve signed the Whatever Donald Wants Pledge and who constitute the majority of the United States Senate.
Since their votes to confirm Trump’s pick are effectively already cast, why not just go ahead and preemptively vote to confirm everyone on Trump’s short list? Barrett? Sure! Lagoa? Of course! Ivanka? Why not?! There may not be enough vacancies to put them all on the Court right now, but there’s no reason not to confirm them today in the sure expectation that other vacancies will eventually occur. (See, above, McConnell’s regrets at the inevitability of death.)
Besides, if there’s one thing in which Senate Republicans believe, it’s that only the present is real. Didn’t they say in 2016 that they wouldn’t vote on a Supreme Court nomination in an election year? But that was then, and “then” doesn’t count! And isn’t Trump not announcing his pick until the weekend? But that’s the future, and the future doesn’t count either! Living for today, voting for what we want today (and we want a lot)—that’s the Republican creed (well, along with support for plutocracy, white supremacy, and low levels of literacy).
So, Mitch—what’s holding you back? Your drones are aligned. Let’s vote today!
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
If McConnell’s puppets in the Senate voted before Trump gave them a name, the next justice to the U.S. Supreme Court might end up being Kushner, Ivanka, Betsy DeVos, Alex Jones, Hannity, Limbaugh, Barr, Putin, or Kim Jong-un.
What an idea! Putin or Kim on the Supreme Court!
Would any GOP Senator withhold his or her vote from either?
SpongeBob Squarepants!
the democrats need to impeach someone….Trump is in new trouble with the cia….there is less protection for Kavanaugh….and Barr….If Kamala does not ask the house to do it, it will not be done, and the extreme right wing will rack up a quick win.
My god (sorry if I offend anyone), this is a brilliant commentary.
I agree with you, Greg. Since the Republicans have proven they will vote for anything that qualifies as human if La Donald nominates it. why wait?
Patriots, live only to serve Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange Than the Sun!
Money.
Money. Mr. HowcanImakemoneyoffthis.
It would be perfect for Trump to nominate Ivanka. She’s female, she’s young enough to be there for decades — what’s not to like? The Republicans would confirm her in 2 minutes flat.
Doesn’t the unseemly haste indicate that the Repubs expect to lose and so better get it done now while they can?
They are expecting Trump to lose. His leaky ship is taking on water from all sides. The failed response to the virus, the lies about it, his attacks on anyone who responsibly and legitimately questions him.
The Green Party took votes from Clinton in 2016 that delivered states to the “swamp-drainer”. With the industrial Northeast and northern Midwest poised to go blue, as are leaning Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida within democratic grasps, they are looking to lock up the Supreme Court for at least 20 years.
It’s amazing how the Republican senators who begged not to move in an election year, in order to allow the election winner to make an an appointment, now claim they didn’t mean what they say.
The religious, conservative right wing should look at their studies of the Last Supper. It was rightly predicted by Jesus that some would lie and deny knowing him before the cock crows. Will four break from Senatorial Supper and do right by the American people? Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, by twisting their own words, have broken their vows without any regard to honor, integrity, or ethics.
Such is the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Their decisions may actually come back to haunt them.
“Their decisions may actually come back to haunt them.”
I hope so.
Scoop: Trump has offered Justices Sotomayor and Kagan free-for-life penthouses in the Tower if they resign. The offer includes membership at all of his golf courses and his Mar-a-Lago club.
The sad thing is that he couldn’t conceive of anyone not jumping at the chance.
McConnell will probably have to wait four more days. [Dang. Much too long to wait.] Trump is apparently nominating a far right woman on Saturday. Isn’t it amazing what a short memory McConnell has when he wants something?
On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
This vacancy arose during Obama’s final year as president, and shortly after Scalia’s death was announced. But even before Obama had named Garland, and in fact only hours after Scalia’s death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared any appointment by the sitting president to be null and void. He said the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president — to be elected later that year. Senate Democrats criticized the move as being unprecedented, and responded saying that there was sufficient time to vote on a nominee before the election.
Trump has the audacity to even call Ginsburg’s last wish a lie put out by either Schumer, Pelosi or Schiff. He has no morals.
Trump’s petty slight of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Opinion by
Karen Tumulty
Columnist
September 22, 2020 at 4:40 p.m. CDT
…But President Trump is not known for decency, respect or sensitivity.
So it is not entirely surprising that his reaction to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is to slight her final request and to call her grieving granddaughter a liar.
With absolutely no basis in fact, Trump has made the outrageous suggestion that Ginsburg was not the author of the statement she gave her granddaughter, Clara Spera, shortly before she died on Friday: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
It takes a really twisted mind to imagine, as Trump did during an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday, that these words, relayed by Spera, were actually written by his leading Democratic adversaries on Capitol Hill: Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) or House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (Calif.).
“I don’t know that she said that or was that written out by Adam Schiff and Schumer and Pelosi. I would be more inclined to the second, okay? You know that came out of the wind it sounds so beautiful. But that sounds like a Schumer deal or maybe a Pelosi or …,” and here he mentioned one of those juvenile nicknames that he comes up with and that I have a policy of not repeating…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/22/trumps-petty-slight-ruth-bader-ginsburg/
He’s becoming increasingly paranoid.
Trumparanoia (2)
Everyone’s out to get me
Even Ginsburg’s kin
Trying to upset me
For me, they have it in
Everyone wants to oust me
Lacking sense of humor
Pelosi’s really grouchy
And so is Upchuck Schumer
Trump’s contempt for truth leaves a toxic legacy around the world
Washington Post Editorial Board
IF PRESIDENT TRUMP is defeated in November, much of the damage he has inflicted on the political system and on U.S. international alliances can be reversed. Joe Biden could restore past norms of presidential behavior and revive ties with traditional U.S. friends. But one part of Mr. Trump’s toxic legacy will likely persist: his degradation of truth as a common currency in public life.
Democracies cannot function if ideological differences are compounded by the circulation of conspiracy theories and falsified data; established facts are the foundation for policymaking and legislative compromise. Mr. Trump has greatly accelerated what was already a drift by elements of the Republican Party toward rejection of science and other hard reporting. His incessant lying — from inflation of the crowds at his inauguration to the course of the coronavirus pandemic — has led many of his followers to beliefs that are provably false and, in some cases, are the product of disinformation campaigns by hostile powers.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has waged a relentless campaign to discredit the institutions that seek to disseminate truth and discredit false stories, especially the U.S. intelligence community and the news media. Thoroughly documented intelligence reports on Russia’s interventions in U.S. politics, including the current election campaign, are, he says, “a hoax” conjured by a “deep state.” Media revelations of corruption and malfeasance in his administration are “fake news.”
Previous presidents have lied or twisted the truth, but Mr. Trump’s distortions are on an epic scale. As of July, according to a database maintained by The Post, he had made more than 20,000 false or misleading statements in just 3½ years, including more than 1,000 about the coronavirus alone. His mendacity has been accelerating: While his first 10,000 lies accumulated in 827 days, The Post Fact Checkers reported, it took only 440 days to double the total.
Mr. Trump’s most common false claims are that he has overseen the best economy in history, and that he passed history’s largest tax cut. During the impeachment investigation last year, he made nearly 1,200 false statements, including repeated references to the bogus theory — propagated by Russian intelligence — that Ukraine tried to harm his 2016 campaign.
Intelligence professionals and news organizations that have reported on the Russian interference and Mr. Trump’s attempt to extort the Ukrainian government have been subject to a relentless stream of presidential rhetoric — and, in the case of the intelligence community, political purges. One result is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, now headed by a former Republican congressman and Trump loyalist, has curtailed briefings for Congress about Russian interference in the 2020 campaign — and distorted the reports it has provided, such as by equating Russian activities with those of China and Iran…
When Mr. Trump took office, the term “fake news” was commonly used to describe counterfeit stories disseminated on the Internet and elsewhere by Russia and other malign actors. The president set out to make it his own, responding to a question from a CNN reporter at a January 2017 news conference by saying “you’re fake news.” Since then, Mr. Trump has used the term more than 500 times on Twitter alone. He also began referring to organizations such as CNN, The Post and the New York Times as “enemies of the people,” a phrase he has repeated dozens of times.
The tactic has arguably done little damage to the news organizations, except in Mr. Trump’s political base. According to a study done by the Economist and YouGov, overall public confidence in The Post and the Times increased between 2016 and 2018, while that in the pro-Trump outlets Fox News and Breitbart fell. The Pew Research Center reported similar findings last January.
But Mr. Trump’s “fake news” trope has had two far-reaching effects. Internationally, it has been seized on by authoritarian governments — and a few democracies — as a tool for silencing critics….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/22/trump-contempt-truth-editorial/
How can anyone in government praise Ruth Bader Ginsburg and make a speech that celebrates her accomplishments…then go on to support appointing others who would undo her legacy?
Who Is Amy Barrett? Front-Runner to Replace RBG Is Anti-Abortion Member of Patriarchal Catholic Group
We look at President Trump’s top pick for a woman to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is a devout Catholic who has taken conservative stances on abortion, gun rights, immigration and LGBTQ rights. Barrett’s involvement with the conservative Catholic group People of Praise, whose members pledge a lifelong loyalty oath to the group, has also raised questions about her ability to rule independently.
“There’s some real concerns about whether her involvement in there will affect her ability to be impartial and fair as a judge,” says Heidi Schlumpf, executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter.
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/23/heidi_schlumpf_amy_coney_barrett