Sunday, February 14, 2016

The Hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell on Supreme Court Appointments

As noted in the previous post, I loath Senator Mitch McConnell who embodies much of what is wrong with the nation's political class and GOP obstructionists in particular.  The man is a liar and hypocrite.  Even as he now seeks to block any Obama nominee to the United States Supreme Court to replace the bigoted and reactionary Antonin Scalia, McConnell seemingly has forgotten his own words back in 2005 when George W. Bush - perhaps the worse president in the nation's history - occupied the White House.  A reader sent me a link to Daily Kos which captures McConnell's total dishonesty and hypocrisy:
 Sen. Mitch McConnell, in 2005, defending the absolute right of a sitting president to nominate judges.
"The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a super majority for confirmation. In effect, they would take away the power to nominate from the President and grant it to a minority of 41 Senators."
"[T]he Republican conference intends to restore the principle that, regardless of party, any President's judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up-or-down vote. I know that some of our colleagues wish that restoration of this principle were not required. But it is a measured step that my friends on the other side of the aisle have unfortunately made necessary. For the first time in 214 years, they have changed the Senate's 'advise and consent' responsibilities to 'advise and obstruct.'"
Take it from Sen. Mitch McConnell: for the Senate to block a sitting president from nominating a Supreme Court nominee—not just a specific nominee, mind you, but any nominee at all, would put the Constitution of the United States itself at stake. And he's a patriot, so he would never even consider such a thing.
And some wonder why I left the Republican Party years ago - it has turned into something truly foul and seems to become even more foul with every passing day.

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