Only three Republican senators voted to invoke cloture on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Attorney General Merrick Garland’s seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a procedural step that puts her on the road to a likely confirmation.
Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who voted against advancing her nomination out of committee and on the floor, said he’d vote against any nominee who’s not an originalist.
Shorter Grassley - I’m pretty sure the constitution wasn’t written for a black woman to become a federal judge.
If any Biden nominee for the SC got even one R vote, I’d be flabbergasted.
Which means like everything else in the current Senate, a judicial nominee must pass the Joe Manchin test.
Or women to vote or own property.
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
“But for a potential future promotion, it bodes ill for fervent cheerleaders of bipartisanship.”
In related news, fans of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are in for disappointment.
And this is news how? Get off the poor, poor pitiful me routine and get on the who cares they’re assholes team. Get over it. Our nominee will be confirmed and we are suppose to care what the GOP thinks? Give me a break.
Grassley is a senile old fool who should have been put out to pasture long ago.
To be fair, the Tooth Fairy’s CV is a little thin on appellate experience. But the Easter Bunny – dude’s a diva ever since the Peeps United decision.
Yeah, exactly. I no longer give a rat’s ass what any R says, or thinks. They have all tapped out of the democracy game.
They are not simply choosing to not be part of the solution. They are not part of the problem. They are the problem.
OT
And yet they voted for a nominee who ranted, raved, cried, and declared that he liked beer, and who was most likely a rapist and definitely a pretty awful person. Just shows that the current crop of Republicans care only that a nominee will vote their way on decisions, not on their actual ability or understanding of the law.
Or if they are just a decent human being. (Not a Constitutional requirement, but a little decency would go a long way)
“Bipartisan verve” is irrelevant and essentially meaningless as regards nominees to the Supreme Court. A Senate vote of 50 to 50, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie, would elevate Judge Jackson to the Court for life just as certainly and unequivocally as would an unanimous vote in her favor. Her credentials are excellent and she is respected by her peers and those who have argued before her. Big margins make partisans feel good, but winning is all that matters when the issue is final and irrevocable. Justice Jackson’s voice and vote would count just as much, even if there’s a footnote in history books that says the vice president broke the tie. And any good history book will give the context for that.
And THIS is why Democrats hate Manchin. If we can’t get things DONE and the American people think electing Republicans will do something then no matter WHO we put up for judges will be held up…and Grassley??? ‘Originalist’ is a coded word for REPUBLICAN.
Now, black women being property - Chuck’s A-OK with that.
He wouldn’t dare vote against Jackson for SCOTUS.
Yeah, we’ve got to move ahead and quit paying attention to them. Still-- I’m still appalled, not that they’re racists, but that they feel free to say so. Grassly wouldn’t have admitted it ten years ago. (I suppose he’d argue that he’s not really admitting it now; but he knows better.)
and he already voted for her here, but yet somehow he wouldn’t for the SC? It’s just silly.