US President Barack Obama on Wednesday chose a white judge over Indian American Sri Srinivasan as his nominee to the Supreme Court, setting up a dramatic political fight with Senate Republicans who have vowed to block his choice.
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All that notwithstanding, the Republican-controlled Senate should put politics aside and hold hearings on President Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
It was also interesting to watch another Senate Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, try to cover his backside about the Garland nomination.
But McConnell, leader of the Republican-led Senate, told ABC television: “The American people are in the middle of choosing who the next president is going to be”. Earlier in the day, Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Garland nomination won’t be considered, even if a Democrat wins in November.
“I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association, the National Federation of Independent Business that represents small businesses”, said the majority leader, attacking Garland’s judicial philosophy for the first time.
Senator Grassley says “If I can meet with a dictator in Uganda, I can surely meet with a decent person in America”. “The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick B. Garland radiates insincerity”. When a Republican candidate expresses a willingness to nominate a jurist with a long liberal track record, that candidate should be rejected out of hand.
Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, on Sunday predicted that Garland would ultimately prevail. Just days ago, Schumer is singing a different tune, saying it is the Senate’s responsibility to hold hearing and move the process along.
“We’re not going to be confirming a judge to the Supreme Court under this president”, he said.
“The president nominates. The Senate confirms”.
“But I guess I’m going back to, what has changed other than the political party affiliation of the White House?” “And I am telling everybody that’s watching this, the senators aren’t going to allow that”.
He said “Red flags…so a conservative would probably say that Garland wanting to rehear the Heller case, they could potentially see it as the Supreme Court infringing on the second amendment”. “Between you and me, I think there are some more progressive judges out there”, Sanders told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Kasich said in a statement Sunday the nice comments about Garland were just “polite” and “he’s not going to be my pick for the Supreme Court”. Senator McConnell said that Mitt Romney will become the Republican presidential nominee, and that Romney is an “oustanding” candidate.
“We think the same thing should happen for Judge Garland”, McDonough said.
There was a lot of insider talk, before Obama chose Garland, about clever nomination strategies based on energizing demographic groups, deploying compelling narratives and putting certain senators in the uncomfortable position of opposing nominees they once endorsed.
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Guns rights advocates point to two votes that they say make them worry that Garland also could vote to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, written by Scalia, that proclaimed an individual’s right to own a gun, at least for self-defense at home.
