I’m sorry that I haven’t been around much this past week, but I’ve had my hands full. I did want to stop by the site today, though, and announce that, even though I’m soon to be on the unemployment line, I’m going to be making a contribution to the Senate campaign of retired US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath this evening in honor of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Gisburg, who passed away earlier this weekend at the age of 87, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Why, you might ask, am I marking the death of the great jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg by giving money to the political campaign of a former Marine… Well, the answer is easy. I’m giving money to Amy McGrath because Mitch McConnell, her opponent in this year’s Senate race in Kentucky, is a despicable, lying sack of shit — who, as I write this, is actively attempting to steal yet another Supreme Court seat — and I would like nothing better than to have McGrath end his reign of evil once and for all. [McGrath is still behind in the polls, but she’s gaining.]
McConnell, as you might recall, argued in 2016 that President Obama should not be able to get a hearing on his Supreme Court nominee, Merick Garland, as it was too close to the presidential election. As Scalia had passed away 269 days before the 2016 election, McConnell said, we should give the American people a voice, and wait for the next president to make a nomination. Here’s the letter from his office explaining why Garland wouldn’t be given a hearing in the Senate.
And here’s the absolutely shameless Mitch McConnell today, saying that Donald Trump’s nominee should get a vote in the Senate despite the proximity to the election. [Apparently 269 days was too close to the election, but 46 days is acceptable. There, by the way, has only been one Supreme Court vacancy closer to a presidential election than this one, and that was in 1864.]
There is no shortage of Republican hypocrites on this subject. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who now says that Trump should be able to have his nominee considered, said back in 2016, “We have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year [Cruz, by the way, was wrong. Justice Kennedy have been confirmed in 1988, which was an election year.] And Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted out the following.
Graham and Cruz, for what it’s worth, are both on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as are Republican Senators Cornyn, Ernst, Tillis, and Grassley, all of whom have given us their word that they would not vote to nominate a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. Here, for instance, is Lindsey Graham saying, “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”
And this is the same Lindsey Graham who just said yesterday, “I will support President DonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.”
We always knew that this would happen. We knew the the argument they used to deny Obama his ability to name a nominee was complete and total bullshit. McConnell even laughed about it a little while ago, when he said that, if a vacancy were to open up before the election, he’d support Trump in filling it. Here, for those of you looking for yet another reason to despise McConnell, is that tape.
Personally, I’m terrified of how this will all play out, but I’m hoping that the folks at the Lincoln Project are right when they predict that this naked power play will be “the final nail in Trump’s political coffin, doom the campaigns of Senators such as Cory Gardner and Susan Collins and end the Republican’s Senate majority.”
Joe Biden came out today calling on Republicans in the Senate to do what they know is right, and “(refuse to confirm anyone) nominated under the circumstances President Trump and Senator McConnell have created.” So far, to my knowledge, only Susan Collins of Maine has come forward to say that she does not think that the Senate should consider Trump’s nominee, whomever it might be. She, of course, also said that she had serious concerns about Kavanaugh, only to ultimately vote for him.
I know it doesn’t do any good to point out the hypocrisy of the right. Anyone who still considers themselves to be a Republican after everything we’ve seen these past four years clearly doesn’t care. Hopefully, though, at least a few of you are inspired by this post to join me in investing a few dollars to the campaign of McCain’s adversary in my home state of Kentucky… Nothing that Donald Trump has done to our nation could have been done without the support to Mitch McConnell. If one thing sticks with you from today’s post, let it be that… Mitch McConnell is a small, evil man who only cares about power, no matter what the cost to our democratic institutions. And he has to go… I’m doubtful that Kentucky will do the right thing come Election Day, but I’d like to think, at the very least, McConnell might be weakened, and lose his role as Majority Leader. That would make me incredibly happy.
In the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, let’s all do the right thing today, and do something tangible to ensure that hypocrites like these are once and for all driven from power. [If you’re not giving directly to McGrath, consider a donation to Crooked Media’s Get Mitch or Die Trying campaign, which is investing in campaigns across the nation in hopes of flipping the Senate and removing McConnell from power.]
