Now that your solitary reporter is back home in Denver after tirelessly serving on a two-week special assignment in New Hampshire from DNC Chair Tom Perez and New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, it’s time to get serious, folks.
During the eight years of his presidency, Barack Obama only got to make three nominations to the Supreme Court. Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, both excellent choices, were confirmed after very thorough vetting. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Enter Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnelll, who, in total dereliction of duty, refused to allow middle-of-the road jurist Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to succeed Scalia, to have a hearing. McConnell’s stonewall tactics, and the unexpected events of 2016 when a totally unqualified guy received far fewer popular votes than Hillary — all of McConnell’s tactics worked, and now we have Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court — and one more to go, at least for now, as all sensible people pray for continued health for RBG.
Did these SCOTUS wars start with Earl Warren (who, once on the Court, surprised Eisenhower, who nominated him), or with FDR’s bumbled court-packing plan? Or with the defeat of the Bork nomination? Or Clarence Thomas?
Chuck Grassley, the wizened Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had been trying to push Justice Anthony Kennedy off the Court for quite a while. Well, he got his way, and now Trump has nominated hyper-conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — even after we here at AP earlier reported that Trump would nominate Michael Cohen (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/04/10/trump-appoints-his-pit-bull-lawyer-michael-cohen-to-the-supreme-court/)
or Grassley himself (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/05/11/grassley-to-trump-put-me-on-the-supreme-court-trump-wants-kelly-sadler-at-state-lapierre-is-ecstatic/)
or hyper-bombastic Rudy Giuliani (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/06/27/trump-nominates-giuliani-to-supreme-court-to-succeed-justice-kennedy/)
or the guy who arranges all such things for Trump, Federalist Society judicial vetter Leonard Leo (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/06/28/why-nobody-should-pay-any-attention-at-all-to-trump-s-scotus-shortlist/)
And we’ve also said in these pages that Kavanaugh will be confirmed.
But now, Kavanaugh’s hearing is set to begin September 4, and McConnell is intent on getting him confirmed before the mid-terms so Trump can claim a “victory," especially since all he’s done since January 20 of last year, is to destroy our reputation for integrity and fairness on the international stage; pass “tax reform” to privilege the wealthy even more; doing his utmost to repeal the Affordable Care Act, on which millions of his base depends; forever tarnish the reputation of the USA as welcoming to immigrants, etc. etc.
Outside pressure groups favoring Kavanaugh’s confirmation are vastly outspending those opposed, and that’s driving Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer nuts (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/20/scotus-spending-fight-kavanaugh-liberals-784530).
So we asked associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith to predict for us whether Kavanaugh will be confirmed.
Without pausing for even a half-second, she immediately told us, “Yes, SR, dammit, of course Trump’s gonna get his way on this one, but quit keeping me away from my other duties of helping ASRs Johanna Jones and Keith Coleman figure out what to report about Manafort’s trial."