Republicans and McConnell’s Lies
Nine Supreme Court vacancies in place during election years in SCOTUS’s post – Civil War era. It is simple, Republicans as led by McConnell lied to the American people. McConnell would call out to Democrats stating “the American voters” want truthful politicians. Has McConnell been truthful to “the American People?”
2016: McConnell’s Lies: “I believe the overwhelming view of the Republican Conference in the Senate is that this nomination should not be filled, this vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck president.
The American people are perfectly capable of having their say on this issue, so let’s give them a voice. Let’s let the American people decide. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be.”
“All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.”
There is no such tradition. The table (Brookings) shows the nine Supreme Court vacancies in place during election years in the Court’s post-Civil War era – once Congress stabilized the Court’s membership at nine and the justices largely stopped serving as trial judges in the old circuit courts. Furthermore, McConnell and Republicans care less able the American people. It is the 1-percenters Republicans care about.
2020 McConnell’s Lies:: “Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite – party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”
From the 1890s until the 1950s there were only unified governments and offers no test of whether divided government would have confirmed them. McConnell lies again. Second, McConnell does not include the 1880s’ when there were two divided-government confirmations. There were also two more recent divided-government vacancies which were filled by a divided Senate:
– In 1988, the Democratic-majority Senate voted 97-0 to confirm Justice Kennedy (after the 1987 rejection of the controversial Bork nomination).
– In 1956, Eisenhower made an uncontested October recess appointment of Justice Brennan. Had the Senate been in session, it would have confirmed a Brennan nomination as it did early in 1957.
The problem is simple. Republicans should own up to McConnell’s lies in 2016 and his present lie in 2020 they are using to justify their actions in support of trump. In 2016, they established a basis for their actions (by lying) which they now want to ignore in 2020. This is not about a process. It is about politics where none existed before historically and the subsequent lies to change it for political advantage.
McConnell’s Fabricated History to support his claims.
Wait! What?
Moscow’s Bitch, Mitch is lying to us?
“McConnell’s Lies: “I believe”
1. Lie
2. Sarcasm
3. Plain vanilla truth
when you are reading internet blog you really have three choices. you can interpret the blog in three separate ways.
when I agree with the blog I choose number three, but when I disagree with the blog I choose number two. seldom if ever do I use number one. using my system no one seldom has the justification for censoring any blog. freedom of speech should never be censored!
If this nomination kills forever the entire conversation of waiting until after the next election, that is fine with me. A losing lame-duck should not make a nomination after losing on election day, but before that, no problem. And I think the Senate should feel even less constrained. A nomination made by a President at a time he/she was not a losing lame-duck should be acted on at any time at all. The Senate does not pick justices, they just give consent.
These circumstances are kind of ideal. Sad that anyone dies of course, but since both parties clearly want to make a distinction between their approaches to the judiciary, well this is great timing. What more could you ask? An important election issue playing out right before the country’s eyes just a few weeks before voting.
Eric:
What don’t you fing understand??? It was never a tradition to wait. McConnell lied. Obama could have appointed a Justice and McConnell lied on the tradition of waiting in an election. So your whole point is BS.
I have realized for some years now and agree with what Digby wrote in a post today: “They” being the Republicans.
“They have. They’ve been seduced by the knowledge that they can get away with anything as long as they have the institutional power to do it. This week we learned that may includes denying the people their choice for the next president by openly manipulating the election.”
https://digbysblog.net/2020/09/sure-hell-leave-office-only-if-his-handpicked-toadies-on-the-supreme-court-vote-against-him/
I believe I have noted it before, but our entire democracy comes down to the 2 leaders of the parties in the Senate agreeing to abide by the rules they came up with. Two people. That is it. Once 1 side says “NO” there is nothing anyone can do. That is what Moscow Mitch had figured out when he announced that making Obama a 1 term president was their only purpose.
I figured this out when during the Bush 2 years, there was the fight over the filibusterer.
We have not had a functioning democracy for years now and because of it, the means of turning back toward democracy are vanishing.
There is a book called: Why Nation Fail. One of the authors’ thoughts is that a society/culture will go either inclusive or exclusive. They did not specifically say, but from their presentation it was clear to me that the move toward exclusivity is far easier than toward inclusiveness. It is far easier for an inclusive society to move into an exclusive society than to move an exclusive society into an inclusive one.
We have been moving into an exclusive structure for decades now.
This Supreme Court play being part of the setup for the court to install a president in a partisan move for a second time suggest that we are much further into this disaster of loosing our democracy than most people realize.
Agreed
Maybe we should call it The Houston Astros Court of Fair Play? The Barry Bond Juices? The Harlem Globetrotterrs?
Ken:
Perhaps, I am missing something in your comment because I am still half asleep after finally getting up and not yet have drunk my chicory-coffee blend. Expand on this Ken, I am still waking up. Also, If you see anything needing help in AB, let me know, so I can get to it while Dan is busy.
Bill
From John Robert’s calling balls and strikes such grow. I’m wondering if they realize that a some point the Court becomes irrelevant? May have already; as in Banana Republics. Anyway, abstract thinking is the truest of thinking.
Ken:
I speak in a simpler language, still get my point across, and you will know where I stand always.
Roberts appears to have a conscience which he showed when Warren put him on the spot with her note to him which he had to read aloud.
and then Murkowski:
It is not politics. Judges have to decide. There are no non-decisions in court. Murkowski’s comment just shows where she lies in granting safe haven to Roberts and subsequently trump.
Murkowski and Collins may side with Dems on the first vote, and Collins will probably go with Repubs on a second vote as will Murkowski also.
In the end, Republicans accomplices in league with trump own this. There is not an innocent one amongst them. It is akin to attempting to find a man worth saving in Sodom and Gomorrah to prevent either city’s destruction. There are none. Republicans own this.
If it helps (or not), even my wife gets what is happening with the SC nomination now and she is a life-long CT Episcopal bred and reared Republican. She also voted for Obama in 2008 before voting for Romney in 2012. This year she got her absentee ballot to vote for Biden a few days before I did.
@Ken,
“… Anyway, abstract thinking is the truest of thinking.”
[Because it is so firmly grounded in reality??? :<) Maybe if one is Salvador Dalí, but not for most people.]
@Daniel Becker,
“…There is a book called: Why Nation Fail. One of the authors’ thoughts is that a society/culture will go either inclusive or exclusive. They did not specifically say, but from their presentation it was clear to me that the move toward exclusivity is far easier than toward inclusiveness. It is far easier for an inclusive society to move into an exclusive society than to move an exclusive society into an inclusive one.
We have been moving into an exclusive structure for decades now…”
[Exactly. From the start, with male slaves as property counting as 3/5 of a real man for the purposes of allocation House of Representatives, exclusion has been baked into our dollar democracy. Periods of increasing inclusive have been rare. Even reverse racism is still racism. MLK figured that out, began the Poor People’s Campaign and labor union activism just to get literally shot down in the process. There is a way. There has always been a way. We just missed it.
Most people think that it is a combination of inertia and gravity that makes the world go around, but I am sure that it is really irony.]
Apologies to Woody Allen.
Nations are like sharks, they have to keep moving forward to survive. What we have on our hands here is a dead shark.
Biden in 2016: President Has ‘Constitutional Duty’ to Nominate Supreme Court Justice, Even Months Before Election
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-2016-president-has-constitutional-duty-nominate-supreme-court-justice-even-months-1533106
non sequitur. Did McConnell lie to the public in 2016? Are we a “few months” before an election?
BKrasting,
That would be fine if not for Moscow Mitch changing that concept. Thus, what Biden said in 2016 has no real bearing on what the Republicans are doing today.
It is clear, this appointment is not just about foisting their ideology onto society via the long path through the courts. They believe they have in place the ability to steal an election flat out vs the Bush Florida means. If it pans out the way they are talking, we will be officially in a fascist form of government as the court system will have proven to no longer be independent. (Not that they have not been edging that way with 80 5/4 decisions 75% of which favored corporations/business).
well
the R’s have a “right” to grab power any way they can.
the tragedy is that we let them get away with it until it is too late to stop then, and what they will do with the power is evil. up to now perhaps no more evil than the Dems. but with Trump likey to be much more evil… just listen to the man,
but it might be worth noting that with Eisenhower (R) we got the Warren Court.
Ron Weakly
I haven’t forgot your comments on other thread. Just too busy right now to answer. Keep schooling me.
Coberly,
No problem. We are just kicking the stuff around anyway. Today should be dry weather, so I will be busy. The next two days will be rain, lots of rain, so I need to mow today. Take care.