Should the Vote on the Supreme Court Nominee Come Before or after the Election?

This is a question Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will answer.

But The Sensible Conservative offers unsolicited advice:  BEFORE.

The risk in the Senate voting before the Nov. 3 election according to some Republican observers is that some vulnerable incumbent GOP Senators such as Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner of Colorado will lose their re-election bids if they vote for the nominee.  And they may be right.  GOP control of the Senate majority may be lost as a result.

On the other hand, taking the vote after the election – which there is a distinct possibility that Republicans will lose both the White House and control of the Senate anyway - carries a risk that a lame duck Senate may refuse to confirm President Trump’s choice.  Defeated Republicans may believe – out of a sense of admirable conscientiousness – that they have lost also their moral right to oppose the will of their state’s voters.  Further, with President Trump’s ouster, other GOP Senators may be tempted to oppose his nominee because they perceive no harmful consequences to their careers by doing so.

A vote before the election in the current political climate is highly likely to succeed and another conservative will be added to the Court.  But the chances of losing the Senate may increase.

A vote after may place the prospects for a new conservative Justice in doubt, however.

What to do?

Loss of the senate will be most undesirable, of course.  But there will be another election in two years.  The opportunity to put another Conservative on the Supreme Court may not come soon again.

Given the choice, I strongly believe long term solid control of our highest court is more important than continuing domination of the U.S. Senate.

 

 

Political Hypocrisy is a Bipartisan Trait

The pledge of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell  to have a vote on the replacement  for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg has the Left in an uproar.

Didn’t the GOP leader oppose a floor vote when Justice Scalia died in early 2016?

Of course.  However, McConnell has seized upon a distinction between the two situations.  After all, he says now, the White House was held by a different political party from that controlling the Senate then.  Today both the upper chamber and the presidency are in Republicans hands. 

That seems to be a distinction without a meaningful difference.  Of course, it’s hypocrisy in action.

So what!

Do you think that if the Democrats were in charge of the White House and the Senate the outcome would be any different?

It’s not as if the position enunciated by McConnell in 2016 was founded on any Constitutional principle.  Rather, the GOP leader was focused on doing his best to keep the Supreme Court seat available to be filled by a Republican (hopefully) occupying the White House in 2017.

In 2020, the object is the same.  But the time has changed.  With Trump in office – and his re-election uncertain - now is the time to fill the vacancy with, one hopes, a conservative. 

The Supreme Court will then become a critical roadblock to the Left’s continuing efforts to dismantle America as we know it.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a wily politician, can only lament that he doesn’t have the opportunity to display such hypocrisy.

 

Is This the Most Important Election Ever?

 

A cynic might respond, “yes, since the last one”.

To be sure, each side predicts Armageddon if the other prevails.

Democrats forecast the consolidation of Trump’s lawless, authoritarian hold on America while Republicans can see the radical Left using the “Trojan [Biden] Horse” to give power to Green New Leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

There is hyperbole for both that reaches fear-mongering.  But there is a difference.  From the perspective of The Sensible Conservative, the risk of Trump’s re-election is short-lived – his personality will be an upsetting factor for only four more years.  If Biden prevails, however, leftward (so-called progressivism) policy changes may prove irreversible (assuming Democrats are in control of Congress, too).

But America will survive, regardless.  Such declaratory confidence would have seemed odd and foolish, for instance, in 1800 when the Jefferson Republicans were accused by Adams Federalists of seeking to bring the horrors of the French Revolution here while they, in turn, were supposedly plotting to establish a monarchy.

Or, how about the election of 1860, when the survival of the United States as a nation truly hung in the balance?

And what about 1932 as the land was in a severe economic depression and the prospect of Communist-inspired revolution was a reasonable worry?

Yes, America has confronted more daunting challenges that it does this November.

One would hope that the contest would cause both camps to reduce the scary rhetoric.  Dream on!  Because this is the most important election ever!

The Bias Against Police

 

It used to be that law enforcement personnel involved in shooting someone were presumed to have reacted justifiably.   If challenged, they were given the benefit of  doubt.  But, of course, police involved did not always deserve it.  Abuses were indeed excused.  The public’s bias was overwhelmingly pro-police.

No more.

Now, for many, including the general media, the bias is against law enforcement.

I am not referring to the “Al Sharptons” of the land.  They are seemingly the first to proclaim police brutality whenever a Black person is shot by a police officer the instant they receive the news.  “Rush to judgment” is too kind.  No judgment is involved.

But the change in attitude by many has its roots in the prevalence of video “evidence” these days.

When we see a Minneapolis police officer with a knee on a suspect’s neck or a person shot multiple times in his back, the conclusion of police misconduct jumps out.  We saw what we saw, isn’t that enough to conclude accordingly?

Not necessarily and that belief can indeed amount to a genuine rush to judgment.

Would you think the same if you knew that before George Floyd was on the ground, he told the police that he was on drugs and repeated many times the phrase “I can’t breathe?”  This was before he was pinned down.

Or how about the fact that prior to reaching into his car, Jacob Blake refused police commands to stop?

Place yourself in a police officer’s shoes.

Was Floyd simply ranting in a drugged state a meaningless expression that wasn’t true?  Would you have been unreasonable to think so?

Why would Blake refuse the commands to stop and instead reach into the car?  Was he trying to get a gun?  Would you, with your weapon pointed at his back, bet your life that he wasn’t?

These are considerations which should occur to any experienced person.  So why don’t we hear more about the other side to recorded police shootings?

The media, with very few exceptions, seem inclined to take the video they see at face value.  Fox News is pro-police in the old-fashioned sense and can be counted on to be skeptical.  CNN, is more representative and can be expected to portray targets of police shootings as “victims”.  [The network has one stark exception.  Michael  Smerconish, who has a Saturday morning talk show on CNN, is liberal-leaning but fair, and trained as a lawyer.  He has criticized the press coverage in both of the cases cited above as a rush to judgment.]

The press has been exacerbating racial tension in this country as well as inciting violence by  failing to provide proper context.  Offering a forum for “victims” families to castigate police without providing a differing view is irresponsible news reporting.

It is dangerous as well.