it is little wonder that the Senator from Kentucky is praising the Supreme Court. More than any other Member of the U.S. Senate, he has been instrumental in choosing the members of this Court and has gone to lengths unseen in the history of the U.S. Senate to reach that goal. Remember Merrick Garland, the nominee of President Barack Obama, whom this Senate leader, the Senator from Kentucky, refused to meet with or even consider for his nomination for almost a year? That is right--he kept a vacancy on the Supreme Court for more than 8 months so that he could perhaps see his prayers answered and a Republican President be elected. Well, it happened. Donald Trump won. Merrick Garland had no chance to even be considered. Barack Obama was denied the authority given to him as President during his last year of his term, and the Senator from Kentucky waited patiently until he could bring to the Court Justice Gorsuch, a conservative to his liking. That wasn't the end of his effort to make the Supreme Court what he wanted it to be. At the end of the Trump term, there was another vacancy on the Court with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and at that point, the Senator from Kentucky decided to break the rules in the opposite direction. It wasn't a slowdown this time in filling the vacancy; it was an acceleration, a speedup. In that instance, they broke most of the precedents in the Senate in terms of considering Supreme Court nominees for Amy Coney Barrett.…
On the recordJuly 11, 2022
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