by Joe Kandra, Kathie Malley-Morrison, Pat Daniel
The billionaires who put power and profit ahead of survival of the planet and ordinary people are desperately struggling to hold on to the control and influence that have allowed them to pollute, put women and people of color back “in their places,” profit from guns and weapons of war, militarize the police, promote white nationalism, and un-separate church (Christian) and State.
Hanging onto the remnants of democracy that serve their cause, they try to monopolize the voting process and Senate authority to appoint Supreme Court justices to ram through their power agenda while they still can.
If you don’t think the overnight promotion of Amy Coney Barrett isn’t part of their grand plan, think again.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is leading the charge to appoint Barrett, exposing the hypocrisy in his abuse of power:
- At the beginning of President Obama’s last year in office, Mitch proclaimed: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice… Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” (February 13, 2016)
- Slightly more than a month before the 2020 Presidential election, McConnell sneered: “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.” ( September 16, 2020)
As for Amy Coney Barrett, you might remember her as a member of the legal team that enabled George W. Bush to win the Electoral College in the 2000 election by halting the vote count in Florida.
Here’s a small sample of Barrett’s views that McConnell is trying to ram through:
- Abortion: “…life begins at conception.” She argues that justices should not be strictly bound by Supreme Court precedents—a view that opens the possibility that she could vote to overturn Roe v. Wade:
- Catholic Church: “We see the teachings of the (Catholic) Church as truth… We give witness that the Church’s teachings—on the dignity of the human person and the value of human life from conception to natural death; on the meaning of human sexuality, the significance of sexual difference and the complementarity of men and women; on openness to life and the gift of motherhood; and on marriage and family founded on the indissoluble commitment of a man and a woman—provide a sure guide…” She believes “A legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God.”
- Affordable health care: “Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.” In her view, if the Chief Justice interpreted the Act the way she did, “he would have had to invalidate the statute as lying beyond Congress’s commerce power.”
- Immigration: Barrett voted to uphold the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, which “adds barriers for immigrants seeking green cards if they rely on public benefits, food stamps or housing vouchers.”
The United States still clings to some of its democratic institutions and processes. Let’s use them to preserve the best of what has been achieved so far, and work to make the best better. Vote, and hold your senators accountable for theirs.
