Judge for yourself

As I have so many mornings these last four years, I woke up enraged about the state of our country. How can the Senate be so incredibly hypocritical? How are citizens so remarkably ignorant? Who ever could have imagined the state our country would be in after a single Trump term?

As people much smarter than I have been saying for years, the issue isn’t limited to four years of the most corrupt and incompetent President our country has ever known. No, it’s about the people he has put into a position to impact all of our lives for decades to come. It’s the courts and the judges, people.

In 2016 President Obama put forth a candidate to join the Supreme Court following the death of conservative Justice Scalia. The candidate, Merrick Garland, was considered a moderate and came with experience and the previous approval of many Republicans. The nomination, more than ten months before the end of Obama’s term, was not considered by the Republican led senate and paved the way for the first of three vacancies to be filled by Trump.

That brings us to the present. Our newest Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, a woman with barely two years of experience as a judge but a lifetime of being politically conservative, has joined the highest court in our country. As I considered the outrageousness of filling this seat on the court at a speed that defies the rate of accomplishment of this administration, I looked back to see what the supporters of this action had to say when President Obama attempted to provide a full court to our country. Below are direct quotes and links to arguments made in 2016 along with a more recent opinion piece. Have at it.

“Republicans in the Senate have already said they won’t even hold hearings to consider Mr Garland’s nomination.”

“In light of the contentious presidential election already well under way, my colleagues and I on the judiciary committee have already given our advice and consent on this issue – we will not have any hearings or votes on President Obama’s pick,” Utah Senator Mike Lee said when news of the nomination spread on Wednesday morning.

“If Garland were confirmed, he would side predictably with President Obama on critical issues such as undermining the Second Amendment, legalising partial-birth abortion and propping up overreaching bureaucratic agencies like the EPA and the IRS,” he wrote. 

“We cannot afford to lose the Supreme Court for generations to come by nominating or confirming someone that a dealmaker like Donald Trump would support.”

Missouri Senator Roy Blunt said, bluntly: “I will not vote for this nominee to the Supreme Court.”

Texas Senator Ted Cruz fired off a statement alleging that Mr Garland would vote in lockstep with his fellow liberals on the court – although, tellingly, the presidential candidate quickly pivoted to criticising his Republican opponent, Donald Trump.

“Such a manoeuvre would open them to criticism of their assertion that the voters should decide the shape of the Supreme Court as nothing but empty rhetoric, however.“

Read this article and know that Mitch McConnell, in fact, has no principles.

And from CNBC “Let’s let the American people decide,” McConnell said from the floor Wednesday. “The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be.”

Our democracy is most certainly in peril. For God’s sake, vote.