Tag Archives: US Senate

national news

GOP pledges grim future

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate pledges to make life difficult for a Democratic president and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, we had better sit up and pay careful attention.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has a proven record of employing his enormous obstructive skills to block legitimate efforts to move the country forward if they will benefit the agenda being followed by the right wing of his party.

Republicans appear poised to take over control of Congress after this year’s midterm election. If they do, the rumbling we hear comes from those Republicans who intend to exact revenge on Democrats. It will come in the form of blocking appointments or derailing legislative proposals. Hell, it might even result in Republicans unplugging congressional investigations into the criminal activity perpetrated on 1/6 by the previous GOP president.

This isn’t how good government is supposed to work.

McConnell exhibited his obstructionist skill in February 2016 when, after Justice Antonin Scalia died, he blocked then-President Obama’s attempt to replace Scalia with a SCOTUS nominee. It was “too close” to a presidential election that at the time was months away, McConnell said. He played his hand skillfully, as the GOP nominee won the election that year and then was able to push through three SCOTUS picks before his term ended in 2021.

The final pick was rammed through the Senate just weeks before the 2020 election, which made McConnell’s “too close to the election” call in 2016 nothing more than a ruse.

Don’t bet your last bitcoin that Congress will flip from Democratic to Republican control this year. But in case it does, then we had better prepare ourselves for a politically bloody clash.

It won’t be pretty.

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State news

Cruz proves his idiocy

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Ted Cruz deserves a special mention on this blog, given his shameful and disgraceful and despicable performance while questioning Supreme Court Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I have made no secret of my loathing for the junior U.S. senator from Texas ever since he joined the Senate in 2013. He always has appeared to be grooming himself as a Republican presidential candidate. He took his best shot in 2016, losing the GOP nomination to the guy who eventually would win that year’s election.

I dubbed him the Cruz Missile because he seemed intent on blowing up every enemy he made along the way. The guy reportedly has few friends in the Senate.

He lectured Justice-designate Jackson on whether children are born racist and sought to paint her as soft on child pornographers and threw assorted red herrings at her during the time allotted for questioning. Granted, he wasn’t alone in behaving boorishly among Republican inquisitors. I just am feeling the urge to express my disgust at this clown who represents my interests in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

Cruz is a coward. Why do I say that? Because the guy who once told the truth about Donald Trump — calling him a sniveling coward and an “amoral” politician — became a suck-up acolyte to the POTUS.

He also doesn’t give a damn about the people he represents. I have to point to the jaunt he sought to make with his family to Cancun while most of the state was freezing in February 2021 in that winter freeze that ended up killing hundreds of Texans.

Moreover, how much more “sniveling” can one get than to blame his daughters for the decision to flee to Mexico while Texans were freezing to death? That’s what Cruz did when he was outed for fleeing the state.

Ted Cruz ain’t among the best and brightest Texas can offer to serve in U.S. Senate. As he showed during the SCOTUS confirmation hearing, all this clown intended to do was prance, posture and preen for the GOP base that will nominate the next president of the United States.

God help us if it’s Ted Cruz.

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national news

So much for cheering this big moment

Roy Blunt is a chump lame-duck Republican U.S. senator from Missouri who this past weekend declared to the world that Ketanji Brown Jackson’s pending confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court would be a high point in American history, as she would become the first Black woman to take her rightful place on the nation’s highest court.

Blunt then voted “no” on her confirmation.

What, then, did this GOP nimrod do when Vice President Kamala Harris declared that the Senate’s vote had officially confirmed Judge Jackson to the court? Blunt joined the rest of his GOP colleagues in walking out while the Democratic senators stood and applauded the history-making confirmation.

The only Republican to join the Democrats was Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, one of three GOP senators to vote to confirm Jackson; the other two, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also walked out of the chamber.

I am singling out Blunt, though, because of his idiotic comments praising Judge Jackson’s legal skill, her educational background, her standing as a jurist, her obvious qualifications.

I was left to wonder: If she is all the things that Sen. Blunt said of her — which she is! — why in the name of political reason did he vote against her?

Roy Blunt, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, demonstrated his true self by refusing to cheer for the history that the Senate made in confirming this eminently qualified Supreme Court appointee.

Disgusting!

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legal news

GOP senators show ugly side

Ketanji Brown Jackson is going to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and will take her seat soon on the U.S. Supreme Court. I feel comfortable making that presumption. However, I cannot let go of what we all witnessed from the Republican Party side of the dais at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.

What did we see? We saw senators parse and nitpick their way through the judge’s stellar judicial record and question her on issues that have next to nothing to do with the cases that will come before the nation’s highest court.

Sens. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn were especially reprehensible in their conduct as they grilled President Biden’s nominee to the court, where she will succeed Justice Stephen Breyer at the end of the court’s current term.

What stood out to me first and foremost was the poise that Judge Jackson exhibited as these senators took turns interrupting her while she sought to answer the questions they threw at her. I sat in my North Texas home watching this spectacle unfold and I actually thought: How in the world would I handle this kind of hectoring, haranguing and harassment? My answer? I couldn’t! I would storm out of the hearing room!

Thus, I would hand Judge Jackson the highest praise I can muster for the way she exhibited the poise and grace that her questioners all lacked. Indeed, it was Sen. Graham who huffed and puffed his way out of the hearing twice after completing his interrogation of Judge Jackson, who remained seated for hours on end, answering ridiculous question after ridiculous question.

It is clear that the GOP Senate caucus was aiming at a constituency beyond the room, the QAnon-loving cabal of voters who embrace notions of child molestation and pornography among politicians. Hence, we saw senators asking Judge Jackson to speak to sentencing practices involving criminal defendants accused of child porn crimes, which the judge referred to as a “small subset” of her entire legal career.

The GOP caucus behaved disgracefully. The target of their vile behavior, though, will take her place among the ranks of justices who interpret the Constitution. She made history already by being the first Black woman ever nominated to ascend to this high court. I remain confident Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s history-making career only will glorify her … and the nation she serves.

I also am quite sure history will be unkind to those who sought to besmirch her.

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national news

Enter the Three Stooges

It is tempting, I suppose, to attach some sort of label to three U.S. senators who “distinguished” themselves with their pitiful performances at the Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, selected by President Biden to join the Supreme Court.

Three Amigos? Nah! Three Musketeers? Nope.

How about … Three Stooges? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Sens. Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley all were disgraceful in their own respective ways as they sought to tear down a distinguished jurist’s record by ascribing all sorts of phony nefarious motives to decisions she made from the bench and in practice as a public defender.

They all sickened me. Yes, I am on record as wanting Judge Jackson to take her place on the nation’s highest court. I also am on record as loathing the way Republican senators reacted initially to President Biden’s selection of Judge Jackson and then to the way they behaved during the confirmation hearing.

I will hold out a sliver of hope that some GOP senators — maybe two of ’em — will see fit to confirm her when the full Senate casts its vote.

As for the Three Stooges — two of whom (Hawley and Cruz) apparently want to run for POTUS in 2024 — I just will be content to scoff at their antics and to hope eventually they all get booted out of the Senate. I don’t want any of them voting on laws that affect my family and me.

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legal news

Hearing previews 2024 campaign

Ladies and gentlemen, I am prepared to declare that we are witnessing with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on whether Ketanji Brown Jackson should join the Supreme Court a preview of the 2024 Republican Party presidential primary.

It’s an unattractive spectacle and I detest the notion that a respected jurist is being used as a political football by senators who might seek their party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

I’m talking about Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

They are trying to push hot-button issues dealing with race and abortion and trying to appease the nut-job “base” of the GOP voting bloc while they grill Judge Jackson.

To the nominee’s great credit, she is holding up well under the onslaught.

President Biden promised to present a highly qualified nominee to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer. He delivered when he nominated Judge Jackson.

I continue to salute Jackson’s former role as a public defender. The Supreme Court hasn’t yet welcomed a jurist with that kind of background. Jackson has talked about understanding a defendant’s mindset and the value that understanding has brought to her experience for the past decade as a judge. That aspect of her background alone would bring remarkable and laudatory diversity to the nation’s highest court.

That, of course, won’t stop the GOP presidential hopefuls from parsing her past comments and seeking to damage her reputation by suggesting things about Judge Jackson that do not exist.

From my vantage point, they are embarrassing themselves and have been unable to lay a hand on the nominee’s stellar standing.

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legal news

Inquisition begins

Here it comes. U.S. Senate Republicans bent on derailing Judge Ketanji Jackson Brown’s nomination to join the U.S. Supreme Court have begun digging up issues they hope will send President Biden’s historic selection into the ditch.

It won’t happen. Still, beginning next week we’ll get to listen to GOP critics of the judge look for all they’re worth on something, anything that will gum up the works.

Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri lawmaker who infamously gave the closed-fist salute to the traitors gathering to storm the Capitol Building on 1/6, has tossed out the first rhetorical grenade. He accuses Judge Jackson of giving child molesters a free pass during her time as a federal public defender.

Interesting, yes? I believe it is. So, I pulled out my pocket version of the U.S. Constitution that sits on my man-cave desk at home and turned to the Sixth Amendment. It says, in part: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial … and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” There are some other things in the middle of that amendment, but I wanted to share the relevant portion of it with you here.

My point is that Judge Jackson was, um, following the law and was obedient to the U.S. Constitution by providing “the Assistance of Counsel” for defendants who couldn’t afford to hire a high-priced lawyer.

This is how the opposition is going to attack Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Foes of hers and of the president will look for segments of her stellar legal background and will twist it beyond anything recognizable under the law.

Joe Biden promised he would find a qualified jurist to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring at the end of the court’s term. The president pledged to nominate the first African American woman to the bench. He succeeded on both counts. Judge Jackson is eminently qualified and, oh yes, she happens to be Black.

Neither truth about this nominee is going to deter the critics from digging up nonsense in their opposition to her nomination. Josh Hawley has paved a fool’s trail for the rest of the GOP critics to follow.

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legal news

SCOTUS to get kicked around?

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Mitch McConnell has demonstrated a clear ability — and a tendency — to play hardball politics whenever the need arises in his own pointed head.

Think about how the Senate Republican leader can manipulate things in the event the GOP takes control of the U.S. Senate after the 2022 midterm election.

Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer might retire from the court. Say, he does so at the end of the current term, which arrives in late June or early July 2022. President Biden has to select a nominee immediately after such a retirement occurs. McConnell well might decide to throw up roadblocks anticipating a GOP takeover of the Senate in November 2022.

What might occur, then, if the GOP wins a Senate majority, seats a new Senate in January 2023 and Biden’s SCOTUS nominee still hasn’t had a hearing, let alone a vote? I’ll tell you what’ll happen. The GOP-led Senate could scuttle a Biden choice and then McConnell could decide to replay the tactic he used in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly. President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the court, but McConnell torpedoed the nomination, refusing to grant Garland a hearing. Why? Because we had an election months away and McConnell said the next president deserved the right to select someone. The next president happened to be Donald J. Trump and, well, you know the rest of it.

This all seems to give a Breyer decision on whether he stays on the court a good bit more of a time urgency. I don’t expect Justice Breyer to act on the wishes of others around him. He is entitled to walk away on his own terms and on his own schedule.

The nation’s highest court, though, does not need or deserve to be kicked around like the political football some in the Senate have made it out to be.

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political news

Mend, don’t end, filibuster

As a general rule I am inclined to oppose ridding the U.S. Senate of the filibuster, which gives senators in the minority a way to block legislation they oppose.

However, I am strongly in favor of amending the Senate rule. Instead of allowing a single senator to “filibuster” a bill simply by signing on to a measure to block it, the Senate needs to require senators to stand on the floor and talk the bill to death.

Make ’em hold the floor for as long as they can while they blab and blather on and on. That’s the way filibusters used to occur. Senators would yap and yammer for hours on end, collapsing at times, while they sought to talk legislation into oblivion.

Democrats want to rid the Senate of the filibuster. Republicans are standing firm in their support of the legislative rule. What might happen, though, after the 2022 election if Republicans get control of the Senate, pushing Democrats into the minority?

I can see a scenario where Republicans would want to deny Democrats a tool to block legislation, while Democrats would perform a one-80 and seek to keep the rule intact.

It’s not written into the U.S. Constitution. The filibuster is a Senate rule. It has been abused by senators who “filibuster” legislation without ever having to talk it to death. Make them use the rule the way it was intended.

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Joe Biden

POTUS dons legislator’s hat

This thought occurs to me, so I’ll share it briefly.

President Biden is trying to negotiated a legislative deal with moderate and progressive congressional Democrats. Then the following dawned on me.

Biden spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate. He then spent eight years as vice president. That’s 44 years negotiating experience with lawmakers.

The way I figure it, President Biden is the most experienced legislator in the meetings he is having with congressional Democrats. He knows how to cajole, coddle and convince legislators to do what’s right.

If only he could work his legislative skill on congressional Republicans who — sad to say — just won’t wheel and deal with a master of wheeling and dealing.

This is the value of having a POTUS who knows how government works. Let’s see if it pays off.

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