In a GOP fashion that brings back memories of Supreme Court decisions like Bush v Gore, Citizens United and Shelby County – which gutted the Voting Rights Act, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues sealed the deal on the SCOTUS nomination that they stole from President Barack Obama.  With cunning and prowess that far surpasses that of the world’s best thief in the night, Majority Leader McConnell and his band of modern day Robin Hoods successfully carried out the first step of their rob from the poor and give to the rich GOP agenda.  They will need the Supreme Court to remain stacked in their favor if they are to be successful in continuing to secure decisions like the three previously mentioned ones.

I completely agree with the opinion expressed by E. J. Dion, Jr. in the article that he wrote in the Washington Post on 4/5/17 where he mentioned Bush v Gore, Citizens United and Shelby County.  In the event that you would like to read that article just click on the title; it is ‘The Gorsuch filibuster is about far more than Payback‘.  In previous articles that I posted to this sight I questioned whether the senate should move forward with confirmation proceedings on a SCOTUS nominee selected by Mr. Trump while his administration is under the shadow of numerous scandals, especially the one involving Russia.  Further, although it is less ominous it is still important, the nominee was hand-picked by a hard-right organization and his nomination is supported by millions of dollars in dark money.  Why is this?  Under these circumstances, it is reasonable for senate Democrats to question whether this is a mainstream nominee.

There are Democrats who  openly asked prior to the beginning of the confirmation proceedings whether Democrats should take on this fight since there was little doubt that Neil Gorsuch would be confirmed.  The answer to that question is ‘yes’.  Because bullies will never stop conducting themselves like bullies unless they are forced to do so.  If there is never a price to be paid and nothing is ever extracted from them as a result of their behavior, they will always act this way.  But even when they win, if they are required to pay a price, despite how small – especially when it leaves a scar, they will be more likely to change their ways.

In this case involving the SCOTUS nominee, Republicans won but they received a scar.  That scar can be all but forgotten by them but it cannot be removed.  And from this point forward, each time that they contemplate bullying their way into imposing their will on Democrats simply because they are the minority party without first making a reasonable effort to find common ground, they will look at that scar and reflect on the fact that there will be a price that must be paid should they take that action.  They will realize that Democrats have finally realized that they have a backbone, know what its purpose is, and know how and when to use it.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell used the so-called nuclear option and he and his Republican colleagues are spinning it in such a way as to blame the Democrats for bringing it about.  They said that the Democrats started this fight when former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the ‘nuclear option’ in 2013 to allow confirmation of federal judges nominated by President Obama.  However, what Majority Leader McConnell and his fellow Republicans fail to mention is that Republicans and then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – who had vowed that his number one priority was to make President Obama a one term president, had said no to virtually any proposed legislation that President Obama offered up even if Republicans had previously supported that very same legislation.  They also failed to mention that Republicans continued to conduct themselves in this same vein until President Obama completed his second 4 years in office and that that is how they preserved the most recent SCOTUS nomination for Mr. Trump.

In a recent article in the Hill by Jordain Carney, Leader McConnell said “Our Democrat colleagues have done something today that is unprecedented in the history of the Senate.  Unfortunately, it has brought us to this point.  We need to restore the norms and traditions of the Senate and get past this unprecedented partisan filibuster.”  Hogwash!  He was being much too kind to himself and his band of merry men in his effort to justify their theft of a SCOTUS nomination and how they had to go about sealing the deal.  That scar will forever remain a part of Leader McConnell’s legacy and, hopefully, will serve to always remind the Republican majority that it was them – led by Mitch McConnell, who opted to change the senate rules without any effort to compromise, in order to secure a stolen SCOTUS seat and thereby hand Mr. Trump and his young administration a much needed victory.

History will provide Majority Leader McConnell and his Republican senate colleagues with an endless amount of time to contemplate whether or not their theft and that ultimate victory was worth it.  Rather than accept Majority Leader McConnell’s spin, I believe that Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley got it exactly right.  According to a Reuters article by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung, Senator Merkley, ‘when referring to Republicans casting aside Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, who would have tilted the court to the left for the first time in decades said; “Today, for the first time in history, the theft of a Supreme Court seat has been completed, profoundly damaging the integrity of the court.”‘

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line