The illegitimate Supreme Court
The Republicans in the Senate are refusing to hold a hearing for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. This is in direct conflict to the United States Constitution:
“[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
Nowhere in there does it say that Senators get to decide which presidents get to nominate Supreme Court Justices and which don’t. If there is an opening, the president at the time gets to fill that spot. That’s called American democracy.
The Republicans have also refused to hold hearings for dozens of other federal judgeships as well. It isn’t that they are rejecting them as too liberal or too activist: They simply refuse to hold hearings for them.
The Republicans have gone outside of their constitutional powers in an attempt to install a extreme right-wing judicial system here in America. This is outside the boundaries of normal procedures, and outside the boundaries of the Constitution, which makes their actions unconstitutional, and illegitimate. It also ensures that whomever they install into the Supreme Court is also an illegitimate Supreme Court Justice. And just like that you will now have a Supreme Court that is no longer legitimate. Instead, what we are going to have is a right-wing kangaroo court, rubber stamping everything the fascist Republicans want done. Filling a Supreme Court vacancy through subterfuge makes that appointment invalid and illegitimate, which then makes the entire court illegitimate.
Yet, the establishment media doesn’t seem to think that the worst constitutional crisis in American history is worth mentioning. However, as far as the media goes, this is par for the course. The media has been coddling the Republican Party and not reporting their transgressions for decades. If the media, over the years, had reported on the Republican Party honestly; if the media had told Americans what the Republican Party actually stood for, there would be no Republican Party right now. At least not in it’s current configuration. Maybe that’s why they don’t?
This is the first time in American history that one of the two major political parties en masse has decided to just not do their jobs. To have a democracy you need to have a couple things. You need cooperation, compromise, and both parties wanting all Americans and America itself to succeed. We no longer have that in the Republican Party. Instead we have an extreme right-wing Republican Party focused on attaining and maintaining power, transferring America’s wealth to the Greedy Rich class, and forcing their ideology on all Americans.
Right now America is not a democracy. Our democratic institutions – the House of Representatives, the Senate and soon the Supreme Court – are broken, and have been since at least 2009.
#scotusnotlegit