The resignation during the past week of SCOTUS justice Anthony Kennedy allows President Trump to appoint a young, healthy, cons replacement who could guarantee pro-corporate and anti-sivil rights rulings for decades to come.
Article by Adam Liptak and Maggie Haberman in New York Times on June 28, 2018
‘Inside the White House’s Quiet Campaign to Create a Supreme Court Opening‘
As he made his way out of the chamber, Mr. Trump paused to chat with the justice.
“Say hello to your boy,” Mr. Trump said. “Special guy.”
Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Justice Kennedy’s son, Justin.
A popular refrain whenever a new revelation emerges about ConManDon is : “What would he be saying if Obama did the same thing?” This could be the most important one of all.
To my question in the title, ‘another’ refers to the fact that when Justice Scalia passed away in February 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on confirming Obama’s pick as successor on the grounds that it was ‘too close to the election and the American people should decide’. While this decision certainly did not break any laws, norms or protocols, it certainly established a new one.
Yet despite the fact that Kennedy has resigned much closer to a big election, namely the Midterms, it seems that Senator McConnell is suddenly much less concerned about whether or not the American people should weigh in. Trump plans to have Kennedy’s successor nominated by the end of the week.
As you can see by the NYT article, there is much evidence that the Trump administration has gone to great lengths to prepare for Kennedy’s resignation, like rewarding all the justice’s clerks with appointments to district courts, and indeed two of his most favoured clerks are front runners to succeed him.
But of all the revelations in the article, the one that takes the biscuit is the fact that Kennedy’s son runs a division of the only bank that would loan money to Trump for property deals after he was turned down by other financial institutions due to his many failed business practices.
Oh and did I mention that Deutsche Bank is considered to be one of the ‘go-to’ banks for Russian oligarchs for money-laundering?
But of course it’s the ‘Failing New York Times’ after all, so I must be all ‘Fake News’. To be fair though, the article itself doesn’t suggest that any seat has been ‘stolen’, those words are mine. I still stand by them though. JLP
#IANWAE
First Person Plural 