Merrick Garland For Scalia’s Place In Supreme Court?

Ever since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, there’s been a political hot potato being thrown around Washington.

Democrats have seen this as an excellent opportunity to get rid of one of the great defenders of conservatism and replace him with a liberal pick, changing the makeup of the highest court in the land from tilting slightly to the left, to tilting heavily to the right.

Together with the left-leaning media, Obama and liberal lawmakers have been exerting all the pressure they can on the Senate to take quick action on this and fill the vacancy. According to the law, the president nominates new justices, but he cannot appoint them. They must be approved by the senate before they can take office.

This is probably the clearest example of the huge loss that the Democrat party suffered in the 2014 midterm elections.

Before that time, the Democrat-controlled Senate, under Harry Reid’s leadership, was able to do pretty much as they pleased. They even instituted the “nuclear option” reducing the requirement for a supermajority (2/3 of the voting members) for judicial appointments to a simple majority (51%).

But now, Democrats have lost that control, even though they try to pretend that they still have it. Reid and the White House have continually tried to dictate to the Republican-controlled Senate, as well as the lower house of Congress. But this time, they’ve encountered resistance.

Senator Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader and as such he essentially runs the Senate. He has publicly stated on several occasions that the Senate will not confirm any of Obama’s lame duck Supreme Court nominations, or even have committee hearings, the first part of the process. So far, he’s held his ground and even as late as today has said that he will continue to hold his ground on this issue.

This is not an unprecedented position that McConnell is taking. It’s not uncommon for the Senate to deny confirmation hearings for appointments nominated in the last year of a president’s term in office. But it’s not unheard of to confirm those who have been appointed in the last year either.

The funny thing here (if we can find anything to laugh about in this situation), is that some of the very same Democrat Senators who were standing strong against any appointments during Bush’s last year in office, are the same ones who are coming out the strongest to say that the Republican-controlled Senate has a responsibility to not only have the confirmation hearings promptly, but to out-and-out approve whoever the President nominates.

It’s amazing how the shoe feels differently when it is on the other foot, as well as how short the memory of politicians can be. Clearly, those who are changing their tune are doing so for personal gain, or at least for the benefit of their own political party. They don’t care about what’s right or wrong, or even what’s best for the country. They are married to an ideal and they are pushing for that ideal to go forward, at whatever cost.

Video first seen on CNN.

As far as I’m concerned, Mitch McConnell is correct in waiting until after the elections to hold any confirmation hearings.

But that isn’t without some risk either. Democrats, and their media lapdogs are going to make as much hay out of the delays as they can. Past precedent will be ignored and the Republicans will be made out to be the bad guys… like always.

Of course, there is an easy solution to this; all McConnell has to do is go ahead with the confirmation hearings, putting a safeguard in place. That safeguard is an agreement between the Republicans in the Senate that no nominee from Obama will be acceptable to them.

Were the parties reversed in this situation, that solution would work. The Democrats are well-versed in marching in lockstep, with everyone following the party line. But Republicans don’t do that so well. There are actually many factions within the Republican party, unlike the Democrats. On one hand, that means that Republican lawmakers think for themselves; but on the other hand, it means that it is hard to get agreement, when needed.

A Tough Choice to Make

The candidate that Obama has selected to replace judge Scalia doesn’t make that easy either. Merrick Garland is probably the most conservative liberal that we could ever expect to see Obama nominate. For that matter, we can extend that to Hillary too. As a more centrist liberal, he has received votes from Republicans before, helping to secure the bench he currently holds.

For a liberal, Garland is an almost acceptable choice, from a Republican point of view, and in other years, he would probably receive the nod from the Republican-controlled Senate. But this is the last year of Obama’s presidency, so the Republicans have a legitimate opportunity to wait.

The biggest point against Garland is that he is in favor of gun control. Should he receive approval and join the Supreme Court, we can be sure that liberals will take the opportunity to shower the Supreme Court with gun control cases, trying to pass through the judicial branch, what they couldn’t pass through legislation. While this probably wouldn’t include a full repeal of our Second Amendment rights, it would most likely result in some new limitations.

Considering how hard Obama has tried to limit our rights to own firearms and how he has used every trick his extensive legal team can muster to take that right away from specific groups of people, it seems likely that he would not have nominated Garland, if he had any doubt about the judge’s stance on gun control.

The other big issue that would probably make or break Garland in Obama’s eyes, is his stance on abortion. Surprisingly, nobody seems to know the judge’s opinion on the matter, even after serving as a judge for 19 years. It seems that he never tried a case involving abortion and doesn’t talk about cases that he is not presiding over. Not even his staff knows his stance on abortion.

As for other issues, Garland comes across as a moderate. However, even that may not be all that great, especially when you compare his record to that of Scalia, who was a staunch conservative. So, it’s hard to say which side he would come down on, for any particular issue.

However, there is one other major area where the judge has presided over enough cases to provide clear guidance on his stance; that’s on cases involving environmental regulations. Obama has been using the EPA extensively to push his agenda, in many cases, ignoring existing law or stretching it to the extreme. It appears that Garland would back Obama’s position in this area, rather than giving the subject a fair trial.

All-in-all, this nomination is a definite hot potato. If the Senate doesn’t confirm Garland, Obama will just nominate someone else; probably someone who wouldn’t even be as acceptable as this choice is. However, if they do confirm the nomination, then we end up with a liberal supermajority in the Supreme Court; something that could last for years.

Then there’s the possibility of the Democrats winning in November. It’s quite possible that Obama made the selection he did, knowing that Garland was more palatable to Republicans than just about anyone else he could choose. If they turn him down, they can be sure that anyone Hillary or Bernie will choose, won’t be as moderate, but will in all likely be extremely liberal. Unless they can maintain control of the Senate and win the presidency, Republicans stand a chance of losing, no matter what happens.

Video first seen on David Packman Show.

As I and many others have said before, the country is at a tipping point. We have become more polarized over the years, with the rift between conservatism and liberalism growing wider by the year. A major loss in this election could drive a stake through the heart of conservative politics, effectively putting an end to it.

Oh, it won’t totally go away. There are still too many conservatives in the country to make it go away altogether. But neither party is currently supporting conservative ideals. Should the Democrats win the presidency and take control of the Senate, the conservative voice would become nothing more than just that… a voice.

More than anything, the conservative loss would happen in the Supreme Court. As I’ve previously mentioned, there are several justices on the court, who are old enough that they might die at any time. There’s no way that a Democrat president will nominate a conservative to the court, so unless the Senate is willing to keep rejecting nominee after nominee, leaving seats on the court vacant, they will eventually have to approve someone. Who that someone will be, is the question.

Of course, if the Democrats manage to take control of the Senate back, then they will win. It won’t matter if we have a Republican president or a Democrat one; the Democrats will call the shots. The only true chance that conservatives have is for the Republicans to retain control of both houses of Congress, while voting in a Republican president.

But I’ve got to say, even that isn’t much of a chance for conservatism in our country.

Survivopedia Darkest Days

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

References:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/16/merrick-garland-has-very-liberal-view-gun-rights/

Written by

Bill White is the author of Conquering the Coming Collapse, and a former Army officer, manufacturing engineer and business manager. More recently, he left the business world to work as a cross-cultural missionary on the Mexico border. Bill has been a survivalist since the 1970s, when the nation was in the latter days of the Cold War. He had determined to head into the Colorado Rockies, should Washington ever decide to push the button. While those days have passed, the knowledge Bill gained during that time hasn’t. He now works to educate others on the risks that exist in our society and how to prepare to meet them. You can send Bill a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com.

Latest comments
  • It is important for people to learn the language of Obamese. Armed with a knowledge of what he in ‘really’ saying, we can then understand just how destructive his agenda is for American and Americans.

    Hope and change = despair and tyranny
    Fair = un
    fair share =everything we can squeeze out of them
    Christian = terrorist
    Muslim = freedom fighters
    allay = enemy
    enemy = someone I can do business with.
    Affordable Health Care Act = a punitive tax, unaffordable.
    Subsidy = bribe.

    In short, everything that comes out of Obama’s mouth is meant to deceive or coerce–by whatever means necessary–the subjugation of Americans and the the installation of a permanent Islamo-Marxist regime.

    Unlike the violent and bloodthirsty Communists, however, Socialist Marxists install their regimes by going through existing sources of power. It is by stacking the Supreme Court with left wing appointees that Obama will cement his legitimacy. Once he has loaded the court, they will rubber stamp whatever he or the next liberal President wants.

    That is why the Senate must stand their ground, and why it is more important than ever that all Republicans–no matter their faction–show up to vote this year.

  • I am not a Democrat or Republican I vote for the person I think can do the most for the country, but I would like to know is; What has the Republicans done in the last 16 years? They shut down the government, stop feeding the children in the schools, stopped the health care to the poor and elderly and forced a lot of homeowners into bankruptcy. They also blocked every bill that would help the people in this country for the benefit of a few RICH people that do NOT care for them except to make more money and NOT pay their share
    of taxes.

    • If you think the short list of bad things that the Republicans have doNE has hurt our country, I could list hundreds of things that Bill Clinton and obama have done to destroy our freedom. Bill Clinton had numerous chances to kill OBL and refused to tell the military to do it. As a result we have thousands of dead Americans on 9/11. His wife is nothing more than a criminal responsible for 4 dead Americans in Bengazi. Ask the relatives of those brave men just how much they think of Hillary. It would take another whole page to list Obama’s deceit. Manipulation. Lies, and coercion. I truly believe the American people will wake up before November, and if not, our country is dead!

    • Lawrence, you no longer need worry about your party affiliation, as from you are certainly not a Constitutional Conservative and if you chose to be a Republican, you would most certainly be dubbed a RINO. Your own statements label you a Liberal, Progressive, or Socialist and would be most comfortable affiliating and associating with Demonrats, errr Democrats. Conservatives believe in conserving the principals enumerated in our Constitution and believe in limited government and personal responsibility, meaning we don’t believe in the Robin Hood system of rewarding the non-productive, by penalizing the productive. We believe that charity is best handled at the community level, beginning with family, church and neighbors.
      To take from those who have earned is theft, legalized or not! to re-distribute what someone else has produced without adequate compensation or consent is Socialism and robs the producer of the incentive to continue production. It is a form of servitude (slavery) and has never worked on a large scale for an extended period of time. If you are over 18… grow the hell up!

    • How in the world can you say your NOT a democratic after writing your post? The republicans are to blame for the government shutdown? The first thing out of a democrats mouth! How is it the republicans fault for the shutdown? Let me remind you Obama and the DEMOCRATS wanted a big budget. Republicans wanted a smaller budget! OBAMA, a democrat, said ” HE WOULD NOT NEGOTIATE PERIOD!” In other words I want EVERYTHING I ask for or you can shut the government down! So that’s how you come up with the republicans shutdown the government? I don’t even know what you’re talking when you say the republicans are starving school kids. I live in a small town of about 1500 people and believe me had such a thing had happened here EVERYONE would have heard about it. As a matter of fact they not only give them lunch but if they get to school early here they get breakfast!! When I was in school you got lunch only. What rich people are not paying their fare share? If you would check and even watch tv once and awhile the US has the HIGHEST business tax of anywhere on earth! That is why so many of our company’s are moving overseas! TAXES!!! As far as the republicans taking away the kids and the elderly heath care I’d like to know where? I’ve been on Medicare for about 7 years now and although I wished it paid a little more on some idems they have always paid what they said they would pay. I will admit it’s not as good as it was and there are way to much red tape like everything having to get referrals than it was before Obama care came along. Not to mention the premiums are going up. That’s the republicans fault? If I remember some of them was trying to stop Obama care. I’m a republican but in the last several years I’m sure not proud of it. Mainly because they caved about every time Obama opened his mouth and now what they are pulling against Trump makes me sick! Now with NOT fighting to stop Obama and now saying they don’t care what the majority of the people want they will not allow Trump to be the candidate! But no the republicans are not blameless but they darn sure are not the only one’s to blame for the things you talk about.

      • I’m on Medicare, too. Having to get referrals has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act. It just means that you CHOSE an HMO plan. Those are usually cheaper than other kinds of plans YOU can CHOOSE from. Don’t go blaming the President for YOUR choices.

  • The problem with politics today is the there is a very little difference in the conservatives and liberals. Both will formulate or support legislation the means very little to an effective and economically operated government. Both want welfare and redistribution of the wealth as long as it does not affect them financially or socially. The politicians, DINOs and RINOs, are bought and paid for by foreign and domestic money moguls that have their own best interest in the forefront of their minds and absolutely no concern for neither the safety nor economic success of this country. They have joined this administration in the destruction of this country and its constitution. We the people have become over run by complacency and ignorance of the laws of the land and have forfeited our authority to a central government that was specifically forbidden to exist in its current state. Lazy people soon earn what the deserve, economic, social and physical slavery as we are on the verge of fostering. Welcome to the world of socialism that has been proven by centuries of abuse and tyranny “Germany, USSR and the red state of China” are the most prolific of the 19th an 20th and now the 21st centuries.

  • I find it interesting that most people believe there a clean break when one party takes over the Presidency. Obama campaigned against the secrecy of Bush but expand those policies once he got in office. Candidates get sanitized briefs has party nominees. They get a cold dose of reality once in office. Bill Clinton, DINO, signed into law Republican supported policies. His actions in deregulating segments of financial markets, led directly to the housing bubble. Something high on the Republicans wish list. Along with continuing the Reagan brand of economic policies. Obama has taken fewer overall vacations then Bush. But he’s from Hawaii and golfs. Can’t drive to an island so it’s a vacation destination not a real state.
    I consider myself a moderate. The shift to the right has redefined what’s my core beliefs into the liberal camp. Facts don’t seem to hold any weight anymore. The fact I vote Democrat has more to do with the Republican party platforms written by what I consider an extremist cadre of true believers. A segment of the population shrinking every year.
    Funny how the gun control rhetoric become more strident when the NRA board became dominated by the gun manufacturers not actual gun owners. Hunters safety. Background checks. And other reasonable policies are what I remember to be the NRA arguments in the national debate. Governor Reagan wanted to restrict gun ownership in reaction to the Black Panthers. The absolutely poisonous vitriol has made any compromise a career killer on the right. Catering to a vocal but powerful special interest. Forget national polling that reflects so the support for some restrictions once supported by the same. The simple fact is America has become more density Urban. Along with more segregated by shared values based on economics not race. Fear is driven by highly filtered news of the Other. Those that can move. Into areas that heighten that fear. Those that can’t are vilified.
    Who do you vote for determines how you feel about guns. Fewer and fewer are collecting more and more guns. I know quite a few. More to the point, it doesn’t bother me. Extremist from any side or group does. Adopting the view that violence is a means to an end hasn’t worked yet. And NO that doesn’t apply to the American Revolution. It was a war between two nations. One on the rise but still considering themselves English in many ways. Northern colonies wanted to control their manufacturing and taxes. The Southern ones were firmly tied to the English textile wealth. A solid third of the population would back the winner while selling to both. Rejoice that communications were considered quick in the time frame of months not days. We’d still be in the British Commonwealth. Like Canada.
    Obama nominated a consensus judge. He’s a politician working to return his party to power. When Cruz shutdown the Senate, recess appointments where filled across the entire federal court system. Liberal leaning judges whose nominations were frozen. They will be influencing laws for decades. Just like Bush’s appointments. Republicans have been painted into a corner by their right wing base. Obstructionist is too mild a word for their actions. Or more correctly their across the board inaction. Gerrymandering redistricting will protect them in the House. The Senate is in play. And Republicans should be worried about a Clinton/Sanders nominee. It’s a game of chicken where everyone loses.
    One last word on Gun Laws. Take the totality of every law. Put them in a room with a select commission and streamline them. Guaranteed to piss everyone off but at least it will be one set. Until the next mass shooting when elected officials have to appear to be doing something.

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