This vid of this Senator has gotten far too little attention. Instead it’s Heitkamp and Manchin tucking tail, if any discussion at all.
With all the nonsense being promoted and discussed it’s nice to see an arrow fly straight and true.
Even with the garble presented by Joe Scarborough, Merkley was unfazed.
“But, but… this is ‘Scalia’s seat’...”
No. It’s not.
“But, but… Claire McCaskill and ‘keep the powder dry...’”
That makes no sense. If they’ll nuke now, they’ll nuke then.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right...”
There’s no need to accept that the first wrong is fait accompli. Garland is still alive and able to be “heard” in a hearing and voted on in a vote.
There’s only one way out of this clusterfuck which will have no positive outcome if Republicans force the country to choke it down like an abused child his brussel sprouts: The institution — on its last threads as it is — will be made laughable (which, in my opinion, is the best argument against Gorsuch: that he would accept the nomination to a tainted appointment… he’s a “constitutionalist” don’t you know! except on this one, crucial issue of who may make appointments and when...), will lead to lawlessness (I, personally, don’t plan on following any 5-4 decisions that Gorsuch would have a judgement on) and the end of the institutional backstop that the SCOTUS has been, and the dam that breaks that takes America into banana republic status.
Politicize the SCOTUS in this way and that’s the ballgame. Nobody wins.