On Hugh Hewitt’s show, McConnell says it’s “highly unlikely” he’d allow Biden to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2024, if he’s majority leader. He also doesn’t commit to allowing a vote on a nominee if a seat opens up in 2023. “Well, we’d have to wait and see what happens.”
This is the new normal. Republicans get all of their Supreme Court slots and stop any Democratic slots they can. We should note that McConnell was also keeping most appellate seats open, which is why Trump was able to appoint so many.
Republicans will do virtually anything to win. They will change voting laws. They will put one voting machine in a poor or minority district of a million people. They will forbid voting by mail and then try not to count the votes.
Democrats, with rare exceptions, do not fight back. When they get in power, they do the minimum.
I hear the cries, “But Biden has only 50 people in the Senate!”
Yes, just like Obama had only 60 and somehow couldn’t pass anything, “because Republicans.” There’s always a designated villain, a kabuki vote: These days it is Manchin, with Sinema as backup. But if they weren’t taking the heat, others would step up. Senate Dems are okay with not passing anything on 50 votes, even if they could. They don’t want to.
Biden had a good economic plan, but it has been watered down to basic worthlessness, and certainly won’t do much for the environment.
The test for Biden’s sincerity is simple: The President has vast executive power. Is the President using it? Biden has vast power to forbid fracking; he didn’t. He has allowed vast increases in oil pumping. He could cancel or reduce student loans on his say-so. He has not.
Louis DeJoy deliberately sandbagged the Post Office as part of an attempt to steal the election. He is elected by the post-office board, yes, but Biden can fire him for cause. He hasn’t done so, just as in 2009, Obama could have fired every member of the Federal Reserve except the chairman (who has only one vote anyway.)
Republicans do things Democrats want: They cut taxes for rich people like Nancy Pelosi and most Senators and their families, for example. They bomb brown people. The hurt poor people.
The Democrats who are in power like all these things. They tell you they don’t, then when they have power, they reverse hardly any of it, and indeed, add to the pile of evil.
Anyway: The Republicans already have six seats on the Supreme Court. They’re going to keep them, and may wind up with seven. The appellate courts will continue to trend heavily Republican, and with people appointed by Trump and his successor — radical right-wingers.
The reason I bring this up is to emphasize, again, that while it is possible for the US to turn-around from its current path, the signs are not good. The main chance will come when people like Pelosi resign, too feeble and old to cling to power. But given how hard they are clinging to power and that they will choose the worst people to succeed them if possible, that chance seems dim.
Take this into account as you make your plans. This is as true for non-Americans as it is for Americans, as the US is still the hegemonic power.
And if you are left-wing, remember that multiple states are making it legal to run over protesters. The right-wing wants to kill you. To kill you. To kill you.
Understand that in your bones. They want you dead.
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