Nobody is going to steal my joy! Senator Cory Booker
It don’t get much better than this. First we were blessed with Notorious RBG. And in weeks, we’ll be blessed with Glorious KBJ. For me, the best part of the confirmation vote, as I stood there clapping my hands, was watching the entire GOP band of losers, looking like the team that just lost the Super Bowl, lining up with their heads down and leaving the chamber. While Mitt Romney stood and clapped.
This is a monumental day for so many reasons. First, it’s a promise kept by Biden, in fact his keystone promise kept. Moreover, it’s a promise kept to the bedrock core of Democratic support, African American women, who haven’t been very happy with other promises that have failed to materialize. This matters. And most important, it was yet another example of a Democratic President bucking the odds to do what was right. For the country. Our country.
But if you want to feel like this more often, then take a couple of days to celebrate, and then get ready to work your asses off. Because the midterms are trundling closer, like a freight train, and there’s no time to waste. But if we’re going to be strategic about a difficult midterm cycle, it pays to remember one thing.
All midterms are not created equal. The GOP continues to believe that they have the House in the bag in November. But I keep hearing GOP strategists saying that they have their heads up their ass. And every time I check polling, I don’t see CRT, white shaming, trans sports, and marauding immigrants anywhere on the list. People are talking about inflation, gas prices, jobs, and healthcare. And the Democrats have a success story to tell, if they can just get their shit together and tell it coherently and simply.
But whatever happens in the House, just remember this one simple thing. The United States House of Representatives doesn’t have jack shit to do with the confirmation of federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices. That responsibility lies solely in the hands of the United States Senate. Which is currently totally up for grabs.
And we’ve already been warned. In his closing temper tantrum at the Jackson Judiciary hearings, Leningrad Lindsey Graham made it clear when he said, I can tell you this my friends. If the shoe were on the other foot, and we controlled the Senate, we would have talked to our friends across the aisle, but there’s no way that this candidate would have gotten a hearing. We would have ended up with somebody far more moderate. Pure and simple, the GOP would have blocked a hearing for a Biden appointee, just like Merrick Garland.
And Moscow Mitch McConnell wasn’t shy about piling on either. In an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios, McConnell flat out refused to say whether, if the GOP took over the Senate in November, he would pledge to at least hold hearings for a Biden appointee. Swan pressed McConnell on the question, to which McConnell replied, What I’m doing Jonathan, is refusing to answer the question. McConnell went on to say that he was comfortable with his moral and ethical decisions in leadership. Right. And Hitler was a chill dude because he was a vegetarian and loved dogs.
If the Democrats lose the House in 2022, then Biden’s domestic agenda is dead for the next two years, and so be it. And that won’t help in 2024. But after the midterms, Biden will still have two more years as President, and Alito and Thomas aren’t getting any younger. If either of them become ill, or debilitated, or just decide they want out, a Democratic majority is absolutely critical to allow Biden the opportunity to turn it back into a 5-4 court, which would make Roberts the swing vote. McConnell and Graham have already told us they are totally comfortable with stonewalling a Biden appointee for two years or more before they give up their super majority on the court.
SO, work your asses off for the Senate. If you’re in a state with a Senate seat up, donate. Offer time. Make phone calls, knock on doors, register voters. If you’re not, then consider donating, especially to the two most vulnerable Democrats, Warnock in Georgia, and Kelly in Arizona. Or pick the race in North Carolina, or Pennsylvania, Johnson’s opponent in Wisconsin, or the Democrat in Ohio. If nothing else, contact a campaign and see if there’s anything you can do remotely to help. Teri and I are already invested in the fight. The road to at least begin restoring sanity to the SCOTUS lies in control of the Senate after the midterms. And the map is a total crapshoot.
This quote from General Phil Sheridan when being cheered by his formerly retreating troops: “God damn you, don’t cheer me, FIGHT!” Still good advice here!
Earlier in the week in the hours leading up to the Judiciary Committee vote I couldn’t resist calling Tillis’ (WTF HE is doing on that committee I can’t figure) DC office because sometimes you can get through to an actual staff person. I was lucky and identified myself and where I lived to the lady and then asked if I was correct in assuming the Senator was opposed to Judge Jackson’s confirmation and would vote against her. I was assured that would be the case. I then stated I’d kind of assumed that because it’s clearly state in black and white text in the appointments clause of Article II of the Constitution that only Republican Presidents are allowed to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court and from a list provided by The Federalist Society and only Republican Senators are allowed to cast confirmation votes. She started to reply with well, it’s not quite that (thinking maybe I was a MAGA goober and she’d better humor me) and I jumped in to continue saying I realize there was no such thing as a Republican Party or Federalist Society back when the Constitution was written and ratified but we KNOW they anticipated current times and that’s why they wrote it in! She stammered as she thanked me for my call, as the light bulb had finally gone off in her head that I was mocking her, Tillis and the GOP/conservatives in general and she hung up on me! I was disappointed because I had plenty more material ready to go, but oh well. I have to say dishing out some contempt like that sometimes feels good. Not that Tillis or others I write or call ever get such stuff passed along to them but if it rattles staffers that there are people out there who know bullshit when they see/hear it and don’t like it then it also means there are activists out there working to keep the GOP out of power.
ted and kkk kornyn in Texas are not up for election this year. I still let them both know how happy I was with the vote today and also let them I know they are both pieces of shit (and maybe a little more colorful than that.)
My senators (McConnell and Paul) rarely have live people answer their phones, almost always goes to voicemail. E-mail, if responded to at all, is your basic form letter that says nothing. I am working as hard as I can for Charles Booker who is running against Paul this cycle. Booker gave Amy McGrath a run for her money last cycle for the Dem nomination and has stayed involved since with his Hood to the Holler organization. I’m realistic enough to know this is a real long shot, but not impossible, especially w/ Paul’s latest tone deafness on Ukraine and other issues.
I’m also contributing to several other campaigns because keeping the Senate this cycle is critical. The MSM have already decided the Dems are dead, history says so, polls say so, blah, blah, blah. We have better candidates in all the battleground states. If we don’t manage at the very least an additional two seats (so that Manchild and Cinema are irrelevant), I will be very surprised. The way things look now, we should manage a three or four seat increase.
The House is also not a lost cause. Thanks to Illinois and New York gerrymandering, we may net all the seats we need to maintain or increase our majority. The rethugs gerrymandered the shit out of the map 10 yrs ago and this cycle decided to just maintain the seats they already have. Plus, I don’t think anyone wants to see Qevin McCarthy or heaven forbid Jim Jordan as speaker.
Let us not forget the gift Sen Medicare Fraud Scott gave us w/ his 11-point plan to sodomize the electorate to keep his oligarchic overlords rich. We just need to harp on that. Imagine sunsetting Medicare and Social Security in 5 yrs, making citizens below the poverty line pay taxes so “they’ll have skin in the game” – no way any of that flies.
“But after the midterms, Biden will still have two more years as President, and Alito and Thomas aren’t getting any younger. If either of them become ill, or debilitated, or just decide they want out, a Democratic majority is absolutely critical to allow Biden the opportunity to turn it back into a 5-4 court, which would make Roberts the swing vote.”
Actually, if either become ill or debilitated (I can’t see either man just deciding “they want out”), the Court’s composition becomes a lot more in question. Currently, the Court is essentially 6-3 with a right-wing tilt (though it’s not been the nightmare that we’d all been concerned about; none of Trump’s 3 appointees has been the “reliable” vote that had been expected) but without Thomas or Alito, it cuts back to a 5-3 court and with both men out, it’s a 4-3 court (and Roberts has been a lot more concerned with how *his* Court will be perceived–he’s already taken some hits over several cases which I think have pressed him to be the more moderate vote–so I could imagine him actually voting with the “liberal” justices more frequently which would lead to a tie vote without Thomas or Alito and actual “liberal” win without both men).
Wait. Biden has a domestic agenda? Why am I just now hearing this?