On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vowed that Senate Democrats “will use every tool in the toolkit” to try to delay Republicans from filling Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat.
Schumer said, “We have tactical options to slow them down. We will use every tool in the toolkit. Now, admittedly, McConnell has changed things, changed the rules, so we have fewer tools and they’re less sharp, but every tool we have we will use. Today, we delayed committees going into effect. We had the right to do that and we did it. Tonight, we’re on the floor taking up all the time on the floor to talk about how bad this potential nominee — and there will be many other things that we can use. You’ll see them in the days ahead.”
Which is exactly why this is how the thing ought to be done:
You do not have to have the Judiciary Committee conduct hearings. That’s only a tradition that evolved, and it’s something that’s taken place, but it is not required. It’s not mandated. It really isn’t, folks. The Senate does not get to pick their own nominee, which is what Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrats want you to think. They want you to think the president doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing, he doesn’t get a choice in the matter, only the Democrats get to choose, and they don’t. All the rest of this is nothing more than political posturing.
McConnell rule, and that was during the Merrick Garland controversy, and it said you don’t have a nomination in the final year of a presidency if the Senate is held by the opposing party. And that’s been largely true since 1880, and especially true since the court has become more political over the years. But there’s nothing that says that Trump can’t nominate a replacement. And there’s nothing that says the Senate cannot vote now.
Folks, I know the tendency is to believe the media on these things because our society is just overburdened with this false notion of fairness. There’s nothing about fairness in this. This is purely procedural. The president has the constitutional duty to name a replacement. The Senate gets to advise and consent, and that can be nothing more than a vote. They consent by voting “yes” or they don’t consent by turning down the nominee. But they don’t get three weeks to trash the guy unless they’re given it, but they’re not required.
So there’s no reason to wait. There is literally no reason to wait. There’s no requirement to wait. The 2020 election has nothing to do with this Supreme Court vacancy. The 2016 election has everything to do with it. And, by the way, it’s also not Justice Ginsburg’s seat. Her dying wish is that her seat not be filled until after the next — it’s not her seat. Like Kennedy’s seat in the Senate was not his seat. It is our seat, not hers.
Bingo, with great big bells on it. Short-circuit the whole disgusting Democrat-Socialist circus. Deny them the opportunity to viciously defame and destroy not just the poor nominee but his/her spouse, children, parents, all relatives going generations back, and the horse they all rode in on. Take every monkeywrench in Schumer’s precious little “toolkit” away from him, and blunt every “arrow” in Pee-lousy’s “quiver” too, by just flushing the hearing process entirely and moving straight to a Senate vote.
Then let the whole horde scream like howler monkeys with hemorrhoids, right up until the day Trump’s nominee is sworn in if they want to. There is absolutely no reason—Constitutional, ethical, or political—to continue playing the abhorrent Democrat-Socialist game, and every reason not to. They’ve warped the USSC confirmation process until it’s just a very unfunny joke on the entire country. The whole mess needs to be changed—lifted from the Swampy mire of dysfunction and remade into something Americans at least don’t have to be embarrassed about anymore.
So change it, then. Time to put this Demonrat dumpster fire out for good.
It’s a long standing Dem tradition that you can keep on voting after you’re dead.
Ginsburg just wants to extend that idea so that even after she dies she can still give Rulings from “Her” seat.
Sorry, Notorious, but you aren’t going to reach out of the grave for this one. How’s the Heat where you are?
My wish as well. End the hearings. Make the nomination, give it three days for individual senators to make their decisions, then vote. No grandstanding for either party and no trashing of the nominee with false allegations by the marxist party.