After McConnell reformed the filibuster for Supreme Court confirmations, Trump didn't need a single Democratic vote for his nominees, so he put forward 3 unqualified extremist hacks, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. 3 arch-conservative Democrats-- Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and, of course, Joe Manchin (WV)-- voted with the Republicans to confirm Gorsuch. The following year, Kavanaugh was so egregiously unqualified that no other Democrat but Manchin voted for him. And then just days before Trump lost the White House in a massive rejection by voters, McConnell rushed through Amy Coney Island Baby with just... zero Democratic votes. So wretched a choice that not even Manchin or Sinema could vote for her!
Trump (and McConnell) didn't care; they got their awful SCOTUS extremists onto the Court and it didn't matter if three or one or no Democrats voted for them. End of story. Trump could have nominated mainstream conservatives and picked up votes from conservative Democrats like Maggie Hassan (NH), Mark Warner (VA), Tom Carper (DE), Jon Tester (MT), Doug Jones (AL), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Chris Coons (DE), and, of course Manchin and Sinema. But that isn't the way Republicans play the game. Biden, on the other had...
Biden's short list of 3 or 4 black women includes 3 stellar justices and one who is unqualified. Biden plans to pick the unqualified one. Why? Because conservatives like her, especially Republican conservatives. Biden-- an archaic fossil from another generation-- craves a return to the chummy old boys club the Senate was 5 decades ago when he was first serving in it.
This morning, Christina Wilkie reported for CNBC that Lindsey Graham is leading Biden around by the nose, promising him 10 GOP votes for the worst of the potential nominees, Michelle Childs. Biden doesn't need 10 Republican votes; he doesn't even need one. But he craves the "glow" of phony bipartisanship so much that he will give up on making a magnificent appointment-- say D.C. Circuit Court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson-- for Lindsey Graham's hack candidate, Michelle Childs. Biden is also supposedly influenced by another worthless hack politician, Jim Clyburn, who is demanding Childs. Clyburn already got to pick Biden's subpar and much-disliked vice president, but because he was key in derailing Bernie's nomination in South Carolina, he apparently gets to pick a terrible vice-president and a terrible Supreme Court justice.
Wilkie wrote that "A deeply influential figure in his home state, Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden in 2020, delivered just before the South Carolina Democratic primary, is widely seen as having turned the tide on Biden’s faltering campaign."
Childs is currently one of three potential nominees on Biden’s shortlist for the high court, alongside Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger.
As Biden prepares to interview the top three candidates this week, Graham’s prediction that Childs could win more than 10 Republican votes is significant, because Graham also seemed to imply that if Biden were to nominate Childs she would have a relatively smooth confirmation process. That could be very good news for a White House that is facing multiple domestic and global challenges.
Currently, Biden’s job approval rating is underwater with voters, many of whom blame the president for the fact that inflation is at a 40-year high and the Covid pandemic shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
...Against this backdrop, a drawn-out, ugly Supreme Court confirmation battle this spring would tax the president’s time and his political capital, at a time when both are in short supply.
By contrast, if Childs were to be nominated and then confirmed with more than 10 Republican votes, as Graham predicted, it would represent a rare break from the increasingly bitter partisanship that has overtaken Washington in recent years and reflects a nation where political divides are deepening.
...[A] bipartisan confirmation vote of the sort that Graham is predicting for Childs, with 10 or more Republicans crossing the aisle, would represent a much-needed political and personal victory for Biden.
As a candidate, Biden promised to govern as a centrist and a unifier. In practice, however, this has proven far more difficult than it seemed on the campaign trail.
If Biden believes his abysmal approval ratings are going to go up because he nominates Lindsey Graham's candidate, he's incredibly, unbelievably naïve. It's far more likely that he's just reverting to form and picking the easiest and most conservative candidate, just like he would have any time in his long, mostly worthless career.
I think you're outta your mind.
biden is a LIFELONG corrupt conservative fascist. He's also a lifelong political coward.
Unlike secretary of ... something, he knows supreme court justice means ... something. And as such he's probably much more likely to listen to his party's corporate donors than a lying nazi motherfucker like graham. He was NEVER going to pander even to 30 million progressive voters by naming a progressive-ish sounding justice. The democraps simply don't do important postings to impress anyone but donors.
look at the guy obamanation nominated (still can't be sure he didn't just waste that nom because he knew moscow's bitch would never allow anyone from his admin). "merrick garland" is now synonymous with a do-nothin…