Thursday, October 7, 2021

Politics: The Injustice Senators: 2021 Update

I hope that the next planned post of this blog will be talking about the results of the presidential election despite the fact that it would be nearly a year ago by now. I honestly don’t know how I’d adapt if I were able to blog about The Good Fight again despite the name of the blog being about it. I’ve blogged about politics in relations to elections here for quite some time. Now, I’m doing something that I hope gain popularity. First, I’m doing the first blog post on it. I’m also going to do a YouTube video on it. I plan to switch back and forth between them over time.

 

What do I mean by the injustice senators? Well, it all started in 2016 when Antonia Scalia died and one Mitch McConnell stated that the Republican’t Party gets to be a bunch of dicks by not holding a vote on Obama’s yet unnamed nominee to the Supreme Court since a presidential election was going on that year. It took him all of a few hours to make this claim.

 

Poor Merrick Garland got screwed royally because of this. The seat was held open for over a whole year to effectively bork his nomination. He was the most qualified person ever nominated for the Supreme Court. And what’s worse than voting down the most experienced person ever nominated for the Supreme Court? Not holding a fucking vote at all.

 

Republican’ts invented a new precedent, trying to claim that it was already there that the liberals did first. But that’s not the case at all. They cowered behind what they felt was a close time table so that they would have an out on not doing what they are supposed to as senators. What’s even worse is that Merrick is just one of many judges to never get hearings during the end of the Obama administration.

 

What Republican’ts did then was very short sighted. They probably knew this too. What if there were a vacancy during a presidential election year and a Republican’t was president? They’d want to fill the seat, right? Well, this article called it in August of 2020.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/3/1966183/-Would-Republicans-fill-a-Supreme-Court-vacancy-even-during-Trump-s-last-weeks-Of-course-they-would?detail=emaildkre

 

This leads to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This is something that I doubt that they never thought about in their minds. If Trump really did become president, surely she died during his term? We regain the Supreme Court. It won’t be too long that we’d be without it. We’ve had it since the 1970s and we would get it back during his term. Plus, then we don’t have to worry about flip flopping on this issue.

 

Well, if Republican’ts ever used their brains, they would have voted on Merrick and then not look like a bunch of hypocrites. But they don’t care about being hypocrites. That’s why within hours of Ginsburg’s death, Mitch McConnell threw out his own rules saying that a president could have an election year vacancy as long as the senate had the same party in control. This is why it was different, in his mind. Of course, he’d probably invent a third rule if a Democratic majority senate refused to hear the nomination of a Republican president.

 

This leads to the injustice senators. That’s what I’m calling the 41 Republican senators who all were against holding a hearing on Merrick Garland but had no issues voting for Amy Coney Barrett. I’m going to mention all of them by name, including an update as to if they are not in office anymore or if they are planning to leave office. This is why I plan to keep updating you about them over and over again.

 

They are Richard Shelby (retiring, 1-3-2023), David Perdue (voted out, 1-5-2021), Mike Crapo, Cory Gardner (voted out, 11-3-2020), Marco Rubio, John Boozman, Tom Cotton, Dan Sullivan, Lisa Murkowski, Jim Risch, Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst, Pat Roberts (retired, 1-3-2021), Jerry Moran, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Bill Cassidy, Roger Wicker, Roy Blunt (retiring, 1-3-2023), Steve Daines, Deb Fischer, Ben Sasse, Thom Tillis, Richard Burr (retiring, 1-3-2023), John Hoeven, Rob Portman (retiring, 1-3-2023), James Lankford, Jim Inhofe (retiring, 1-3-2027), Pat Tommey (retiring, 1-3-2023), Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott, John Thune, Mike Rounds, John Cornyn, Lamar Alexander (retired, 1-3-2021), Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, Ron Johnson, Mike Enzi (retired, 1-3-2021), and John Barrasso.

 

You might be wondering if they are all of the Republicans from 2016 that were still in office as of 2020. Well, it is all but one of them. You see, Susan Collins is different for one reason: she was in favor of holding hearings on Merrick Garland. It might have been because she knew that she would never have to live up to that promise and she was taking one of her many principled stands that mean nothing in the end. I don’t think that her vote against Barrett means a damn thing. And you are more than free to want her out of office.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/19/1978872/-Susan-Collins-says-next-President-should-replace-RBG?utm_campaign=trending

 

Now there are issues with the courts and there have been for quite some time. A majority of the justices have been appointed by people who didn’t originally win the popular vote. (It is worth noting that both of Bush’s justices were appointed after he won reelection, which he did with the popular vote.) It is horrifying that 2016, 2018, and 2020 all had the Supreme Court on the ballot when it never was any time before 1992. Let’s hope that it’s a long while before this happens again. We don’t know the full story of what’s going on with the courts.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/21/1979460/-Breaking-Sen-Whitehouse-claims-that-an-unknown-organization-is-behind-GOP-SCOTUS-Strategy?utm_campaign=trending

 

What we do know is the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican’t Party. They threw out their own rules when they no longer benefitted from it. They will always do this. And I refuse to believe that the Democrats also flipped on the issue of election year vacancies to the Supreme Court when they only wanted to play by the same rules as the other party. Why should they just get to invent rules and then throw out those same rules? But there is a big difference. Two of them, actually. One is that the election was even closer in 2020. The other is that the majority of the court was not going to change this time. It would remain in Republican’t hands.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/24/1980325/-Vulnerable-Republicans-don-t-want-to-talk-about-why-the-Supreme-court-in-2020-isn-t-the-same-as-2016?detail=emaildkre

 

Democrats had a lot that they could do, but not much of it was something that would work with them in the minority of the senate. Republican’ts were worried that they would lose the senate, the presidency, or, in the case that happened, both. And if it were a non incumbent senator who had died during this time frame (in some states, but not all), their seat wouldn’t have had one of their special elections to replace it until the next time they were up. These links all explain what all Democrats both did and could do. I don’t know what all worked.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/25/1980620/-To-honor-RBG-Democrats-have-to-do-everything-in-their-power-to-preserve-her-seat

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/5/1983715/-Senate-Democrats-need-to-play-the-same-hardball-game-on-the-Supreme-Court-McConnell-would?detail=emaildkre

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/6/1984002/-Senate-Democrats-have-nothing-to-lose-by-making-this-Supreme-Court-nomination-war?detail=emaildkre

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/7/1984405/-Schumer-and-Judiciary-Democrats-need-a-battle-plan-on-Supreme-Court-and-need-it-now?detail=emaildkre

 

The disgust of the second Supreme Court justice dying in office which was then being politicized by taking a person’s death and using it for personal gain speaks to the overall lack of soul that we often see in the Republican’t Party. Here are two links about this.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/25/1980584/-Republican-ad-blitz-gaslights-the-public-about-what-Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg-wanted?detail=emaildkre

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/27/1981156/-Republican-group-hawking-Notorious-A-C-B-shirts-is-tasteless-but-the-real-problem-is-much-bigger?detail=emaildkre

 

While hardly the worst of the current justices, there will always be too much controversy in her rise to the court. Barrett is the most inexperienced person confirmed to the Supreme Court since Clarence Thomas, which is horrifying as he is the most senior justice. She has controversial views behind just how she unfairly got a seat she never should have had.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/26/1980903/-Why-Trump-s-expected-Supreme-Court-nominee-believes-all-Civil-Rights-legislation-is-illegitimate?detail=emaildkre

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/15/1986719/-Amy-Coney-Barrett-refused-to-say-if-state-sanctioned-kidnapping-at-the-border-is-wrong?detail=emaildkre

 

Of course, there’s a whole lot of issues with her a bit unrelated to her. She might have been the reason for the White House outbreak of coronavirus. She had it and could have given it to Trump who could have easily died. And as horrible as he’s been after the election, I’m glad that he didn’t die because then he wouldn’t have known the country’s rejection of him.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/3/1983170/-Amy-C-Barrett-Had-CV-19-Did-She-Disclose-This-to-Trump-To-Senators-If-Not-Is-It-Disqualifying

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/amy-coney-barretts-supreme-court-nomination-ceremony-seems-to-tick-all-the-boxes-for-a-coronavirus-superspreading-event/ar-BB19Lxgl?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/5/1983673/-McConnell-says-shut-Senate-down-for-COVID-19-relief-bill-but-move-ahead-on-superspreader-Barrett?detail=emaildkre

 

With her ascending to the Supreme Court, she has joined other controversial justices that Trump had appointed, although only Kavanaugh had to face one of his own making. And now we have to worry about voting rights. We’ll see how over time.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/27/1989984/-Kavanaugh-Barrett-put-voting-rights-on-the-ballot-next-week?detail=emaildkre

 

Then we get to the idea of packing the court by adding seats. Republicant’s do whatever they can to pack the court and then have the audacity to complain that Democrats might want to do the same thing. Why is it okay for Republican’ts to pack the court? I think that it isn’t, but by now, the Republican’ts are daring the Democrats to respond in kind and Republican’ts will have no one to blame for this but themselves.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/17/1987265/-There-s-nothing-sacred-about-nine-Supreme-Court-seats-and-nothing-original-about-that-number?detail=emaildkreicymi

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/5/2014258/-Dick-Durbin-Democrats-own-Tom-Cotton-on-his-court-expansion-gotcha-trick?detail=emaildkre

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ted-cruz-says-republicans-didnt-try-to-rig-the-game-by-changing-the-supreme-court-hes-ignoring-2016/ar-BB1fWL9e

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/4/9/2025125/-Republicans-packed-the-Supreme-Court-Biden-is-creating-a-commission-to-study-the-problem?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=most-shared

 

Something that is worth mentioning is that when Merrick Garland was nominated to be the attorney general of this country, people had to vote for him and there were 19 injustice senators who did vote for Merrick Garland: Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Shelley Moore Capito, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, Joni Ernst, Lindsey Graham, Charles Grassley, Jim Inhofe, Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Mitch McConnell, Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Mike Rounds, John Thune, and Thom Tillis. Merrick Garland can now handle criminal cases, something that no one on the Supreme Court ever does anymore. He could be the reason why Trump goes to jail, if we don’t count Trump himself. Only one Republican who wasn’t an injustice senator voted in favor of Merrick for attorney general. This sadly speaks to a testament as to what the party might wind up becoming in the future.

 

I’m mentioning the injustice senators in order for people to know who they are. Don’t vote for them. Always vote for the Democrat running against them. Even consider voting against those who run in primaries against these Republican’ts if you can without switching parties or you don’t have to register in your state as it is an open primary. I want all of them out of office which is why I’ll keep posting about them. I imagine that most of them will retire. But we need them all gone no matter what. After all, they show that they have no principles when it comes to following their own rules, hence showing an injustice.

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