Senate Republicans Divided Over Strategy For Obama Court Nominee
BY Herschel Smith8 years, 9 months ago
Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday over how to battle President Obama’s expected Supreme Court nomination as the White House left open the remote possibility that the president might sidestep a confirmation fight by making a rare recess appointment.
Obama has the option, while the Senate is in recess, of naming a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday. A recess appointee would serve until the end of the current Congress in January 2017. White House officials did not dismiss the idea that the president could use the recess maneuver if the Senate fails to hold hearings and a vote on the nomination Obama has promised to send to the Senate.
“Our intent is to nominate an indisputably qualified individual to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday. “And our expectation is that the United States Senate will fulfill their constitutional responsibility to give that individual a fair hearing in a timely up-or-down vote.”
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared in the hours after Scalia’s death that his seat “should not be filled until we have a new President.” But since his statement Saturday, his Republican colleagues have not agreed on where precisely they ought to make their stand: Should they refuse to take any action whatsoever, responding to the demands of the conservative base? Or should they at least schedule hearings and procedural votes in order to blunt political attacks from Democrats?
The hand wringing is so dramatic, yes? “Blunt political attacks from Democrats.” Attacks. Okay folks, listen up. Relax. Take a deep breath. These aren’t attacks. Attacks are what my son sustained in Fallujah. Attacks are what happens when someone comes at you with a knife attempting to disembowel you. Attacks are what happens when someone shoots a gun at you, and attack is when black thugs gang up on a notable and decorated Marine Corps veteran within six blocks of the White House and beat the hell out of him while they scream, “do black lives matter?”
You are not under attack. You sit in comfortable chairs every day, rub shoulders with colleagues, go to the Congressional cafeteria and gym, and have your aids do all of the heavy lifting. Your job is a cake walk. Your strategy is this: You do nothing.
You don’t have hearings, you ignore overtures from the White House, you don’t give them the time of day, and you don’t respond to reporters when they harass you for not kowtowing to the communists in the executive branch. There. I’m glad I could be of help.
And all of these hand-wringing articles written by propagandists about “heavens, what are we to do,” yea, those, they are just so much end of the world propaganda. Don’t waste you time with them, and don’t give them quotes to use against you. Grow up, and don’t act like pansy-ass little girls.
On February 21, 2016 at 11:33 am, Ned Weatherby said:
Typical that “Black lives matter” cowards would hit a guy in the back of the head.