Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is a man on a mission. With less than two months remaining before Americans choose their next president and the balance in the House and Senate the Republicans have one more chance to ideologically groom the United States Supreme Court.
The death of justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg gave Trump and the Republican majority in the Senate a golden opportunity to put the Supreme Court even deeper in the pocket of Big Money and the right wing. So much for equality before the law.
A politicized court does not deliver justice. It is engineered to deliver predictable outcomes slanted to favour one group over the others.
The USSC is, along with Congress and the presidency, a co-equal branch of government, a cornerstone of America's vaunted system of checks and balances. An ideologically groomed Supreme Court bench neither checks nor balances. It dispenses partisan law assisting one side to dominate the others.
This would be a disturbing development in the best of times. This is not the best of times, not in America or anywhere else. This is the Great Acceleration, the Great Emergency.
The United States, like every other nation, is being rocked by events foreseen and unforeseen. What no longer works must be replaced. What is being torn down must be rebuilt often in some new fashion. Get it wrong and much will be lost, many will suffer. It is a time that will demand vision and courage and fairness. The court being engineered by the Republicans will be ill-equipped to deliver.
McConnell's hypocrisy knows no bounds, Mound -- and it knows no shame.
ReplyDeleteNow comes the apocalypse, and it ain't on a horse! A new Justice before the election despite the Senate Dems pulling all the stops, and then Trump gets all of his motions to disallow late votes, alleged missing votes and all those handed in after election day passed by SCOTUS. Ergo another four years for trump.
ReplyDeleteHw doesn't even need a rigged USPS now.
We'll soon see if the Dims are ready to fight or whether they'll continue to be punching bags. Even this Canadian, unschooled in the minutiae of Congressional hardball, can see a couple of obvious options.
ReplyDeleteFirst, impeach Barr, Kavanaugh, Trump or all three. Barr for corrupting the Justice Department, Barr and Kavanaugh for lying under oath, and Trump, well, take your pick of corrupt acts. Impeachment proceedings take precedence over judicial confirmations, so start tomorrow, before McConnell rams through another Federalist, this time without hearings and on a straight party vote.
Second, tie the confirmation up in the courts by arguing that McConnell set a new binding precedent by refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Gorsuch in Obama's final year. That's now the new rule and Republicans have to abide by it.
Either of these actions, or both, shoukd delay the confirmation proceedings well past November and into next year. I'm sure there are other options that are obvious to the likes of Pelosi and Schumer should they ever give up on bringing knives to a gunfight.
Cap
.. 'courage and fairness' .. you're kidding right ?
ReplyDeleteMcConnell has been a whore since he became Senate Majority Leader, Owen, and it was that attribute that earned him the position.
ReplyDeletePretty dark, Ben. If you're right, America's troubles are only beginning.
ReplyDeleteCap, many thanks. I hope you're right. Maybe Nancy and her gang spent the weekend productively to prep articles of impeachment.
ReplyDeleteSal, you're probably right.
ReplyDelete