When tweetle beetles fight,
it’s called a tweetle beetle battle.
Republicans decided years ago that if they cannot win control of Washington, D.C. with policies a majority of Americans support, they would game democracy so they might rule as a minority. Failing that, their backup plan is to stack the courts with far-right judges appointed for life. On occasions when the GOP lacks the votes to prevent popular legislation legislation they dislike, Republicans can appeal to “activist” judges of their choosing to overrule the will of the electorate.
Failing that, they just might burn the place down.
For years, Republicans have made it their mission to install young, under-qualified ideologues to lifetime federal judgeships while blocking Democrats from filling vacancies with qualified ones. Under Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, that has become virtually the only work of the U.S. Senate during the Trump administration.
With the looming prospect that Republicans will lose bigly in a few weeks, McConnell is fixated on getting one last ideologue appointed to the Supreme Court before he loses control of the Senate. The prospect that Democrats might neutralize the conservative advantage once they have a turn at appointing judges — and might even expand the Supreme Court — has Republicans fuming.
The bad form of it all! The un-Americanness of tinkering with Platonic Forms handed down from the mountaintop!
Digby argued on Saturday that expanding the court is necessary to restore representative government Republicans have undermined. Democrats have a duty “to re-balance the court and otherwise re-establish a constitutional order that recognizes majoritarian governance with protection of the minority instead of the GOP’s new formulation of minority rule with repression of the majority.”
Parker Molloy drew attention on Saturday to a time when Republicans found rejiggering the courts to their liking very, very American.
See “Reason 466 for why Dems should expand the Court” from Saturday.
LateFriday, Marc Elias of Democracy Docket celebrated a federal district court victory blocking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order restricting Texas counties to one ballot drop box each. One: no matter if the population of the counties numbered in the hundreds or the millions. Great, Marc. Now, can you make it stick?
Not yet. A three-judge appellate court swiftly stayed that order. Guess who appointed all three?
It’s like a tweetle beetle battle. “Voters are screwed again,” tweeted NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
Somewhere between Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss exists the land of “Make Believe the United States Is Not A Bad Movie.” There a drugged-up autocrat contagious with a deadly disease is not screaming “off with their heads” to an arena filled with maskless, vulnerable subjects and tweetle beetles in a puddle are not battling with paddles over the size of their bottle.
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