Chris Coons: I’m Not Really A Democrat, But I Play One On TV
The headline from Delaware Public Radio says it all: “Sen. Coons will give SCOTUS pick fair shake”. I guess this is appropriate given that today is Groundhog Day.
Some Democrats in the U.S. Senate want to adopt their Republican counterparts’ tactics and block President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court.
But Sen. Chris Coons wants to give Judge Neil Gorsuch a full hearing in the U.S. Senate.
We have this piece of shit for another 6 years. Let that sink in for a moment.
Also buried deep in the article is the fact that Tom Carper “won’t block his confirmation strictly out of political retaliation.” Fucking hell.
Sen. Chris Coons told NPR’s Morning Edition Wednesday he’s chosen to uphold his responsibility as a member of the Senate.
“That means ensuring that Judge Gorsuch gets the full and thorough hearing and vetting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that DC Circuit Judge Merrick Garland -nominated by Obama nearly a year ago- never received,” he said.
Sen. Chris Coons said it was outrageous and unprecedented for his Republican counterparts to deny a hearing for Obama’s nominee to the court.
But he doesn’t think voters will support that tactic with Gorsuch’s nomination.
“I think the American people deserve to hear what Judge Gorsuch’s answers are to probing and tough and challenging questions about his views on a wide range of constitutional issues,” he said.
Both Coons and Sen. Tom Carper said they plan to judge Gorsuch on his credentials and record, and won’t block his confirmation strictly out of political retaliation.
Ever get the feeling there’s nowhere to go? If Delaware truly was a blue state would we send Carper and Coons to the senate? Would we tolerate Carney The Obscure? Now is the time to end the age of the Corporate Dem, there can be no compromise if the party is to survive in any worthwhile form. Expect a debacle in the senate and capitulation from what passes for our representatives in Washington.
I think a Scalia replacement is the absolute best we can hope for in this case. If this guy goes down, David Duke could be the next pick.
Speaking of Coons, the Brave Man took a bold non-stance on Rex Tillerson’s nomination. Tillerson’s nomination was confirmed by the Senate in a 56-43 vote.
You may notice that that’s 99 senators. One senator went ‘Present-Not Voting’. Yep, Delaware’s Chris Coons.
We know why. He WANTED, with all his heart to vote yes, but he knew his constituents were watching. Rather than vote no, he went not voting.
Profile in Cowardice indeed.
The best we can get is nobody. David Duke wouldn’t pass muster.
Neither should this ‘collegial Scalia’, who could be on the court for 30 years or more.
You know that isnt going to happen, right?
McConnell will kill the filibuster.
Then come the voting restrictions to guarantee continued GOP control in the ’18 mid terms that Dems will be powerless to stop. (not to mention stripping power away from courts who would challenge the regime)
I know you’ve seen the 18 election map and it is already horrifying. I give us 50/50 odds of even having a fair election in 2020 as it is.
Friends, I mean this sincerely. Our country is dead. Now is the time to get you and your families somewhere safe while you still can.
@Ben: The Senate is a disaster, but the House is within reach. Flipping 24 seats won’t be impossible given the level of chaos.
Id agree if this was a typical GOP president.
He’s not. Bannon is in charge, drumpf is his puppet. Drumpf is nothing, just a willing dupe. Bannon wants a holy war, he wants to exterminate everyone but right-wing right xtians and the GOP is willing to go along with it.
We. Are. Fucked.
There are enough GOP state houses to gerrymander the Dems out of existence. You heard it here first. We just saw out last free presidential election.
Know what else happens in 2020?
Census.
Yep. that will be the final step.
In 2010, the right totally discredited the “this will be used to round you up” warning by shrieking it. So when they are actually using it to identify people to…. take care of….. they can just say “oh, you said that about Obama”.
@Ben: You don’t seem to get this. Some of those statehouses won’t be in Republican hands after the 2020 elections.
You are too young to have lived through Reagan. Imagine Trump, not in personality of course but in policy, but with a Democratic Congress that HELPED him do it. Reagan appointed opponents of every agency to head those agencies, etc., and we lived through it. We will live through this, too, and if the first two weeks are any indication, people will have no difficulty in ringing the gong on this “Gong Show” administration.
I hope you’re right. But the GOP has found a way to lock down the HoR while getting far fewer votes. All that needs to be done is to disenfranchise, or straight up do away with voters in a few key districts and that’s the end of free elections.
My grandfather’s grandfather saw the writing on the wall in the 1920s in Poland and was able to get out while he could. He knew where it was going and knew there was little anyone could do to stop it. Maybe the impulse is hereditary and hopefully I’m wrong.
For me, there are various “Canaries in a Coal mine” that have already started dropping. Bannon getting more power is a big one… so is ignoring the courts on the travel ban with no apparent recourse from anywhere. We’ll see what happens if Devos is rejected ans he tries to give her power anyway.
This is not normal.
If anything, this is cyclical human civilization. Its been roughly 80 years since the last time it happened. All that is keeping me here is my current inability to go somewhere else.
” Imagine Trump, not in personality of course but in policy, but with a Democratic Congress that HELPED him do it. ”
Or Bush, whose disastrous tax cuts for the rich and Iraq war were authorized by a Democratic Congress.
“Reagan appointed opponents of every agency to head those agencies, etc., and we lived through it.”
Including Anne Gorsuch, the mother of Trump’s current Supreme Court nominee.
Reagan’s cabinet was just as much a roque’s gallery as Trump’s. Remember James Watt at Interior, whose first action was to cancel a Beach Boys concert on the Mall because the Beach Boys promoted drug use?
@Ben: Where would you go? I looked into property in France, but they’re getting ready to elect LePen.
As I expected, this is shaping up to be Congressional Republicans vs. Bannon et al. A few more calls like the one to the Australian PM and they’ll start to realize that the 25th Amendment is their avenue to ousting Bannon.
Any time one party seizes all control, it splits into warring factions (see Delaware Democrats for illustration, where Schwartzkopf goes against much of his caucus). The internal power struggle is inevitable and, given the people fighting on each side, we can only hope both sides suffer as much damage as possible.
This is not the time to give up. It’s the time to push “Let’s you and him fight.”
That plays in to it. If the Fash has actually taken over the most powerful nation on earth, there’s really nowhere to go.
Im white, male, and not “obviously Jewish”, so it’s only my inability to keep my opinions to myself that put me at any kind of risk. Which means I have time to really put together a solid exit plan.
But when this nation descends into turning our neighbors in for sedition, we’re all in deep trouble. I’m only mostly ready to flee. The next couple of months will be critical. Either this wave breaks and recedes, or its a biblical flood…. and only the roaches are left. HAPPY THURSDAY!
This is absolutely bone chilling http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.769002
@puck: Yes, Anne Gorsuch was one of the more flagrant miscreants, having actually gotten caught mismanaging the Superfund.
http://theslot.jezebel.com/anne-gorsuch-burford-mother-of-trump-scotus-nominee-n-1791866164
Coons will only support liberal positions when it doesn’t hurt his contributors
@Ben, in a movie, at this point someone would give you a sharp slap across the face, and you’d say, “Thanks, I needed that.” Get your emergency kit together together if you like, it will come in handy in a hurricane or other weather emergency, but otherwise, the energy expended on freaking out is better spent on resisting any way you can. I’m stealing a link from the Blue Delaware open thread — print it out and tape it to your mirror:
https://twitter.com/dbernstein/status/826861210473811976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This isnt a movie. There is no scripted happy ending. Anyone who slaps me will absolutely not be thanked. The cold hard reality is that while we may go down swinging and take as many Nazi scum as we can with us…. and while the good may rise again one day, the coup has happened.
Agree with Paula. And if it does devolved into neighbors reporting me for sedition or going on some sort of watch list then that’s how it goes. I’m going out standing up here, swinging, with fingers high.
Ben: Above all, don’t despair. The Trump “movement” is supported by only about the same number of people who stuck with GWBush until the bitter end. And stories about Republicans ducking constituents make them all look bad.
https://thinkprogress.org/these-gop-lawmakers-really-dont-want-to-talk-to-their-constituents-about-obamacare-c5092a772b39#.jrzib3f9l
Ben, of course there is no scripted happy ending! I’m not saying everything will come out OK. On the other hand, your scenario is not inevitable either. I was trying to say that it’s time to stop freaking out and do something. But you are probably already be doing all kinds of stuff (and I am sincere when I say that), and I am not doing nearly enough, so I didn’t want to draw a comparison. 🙂
I just wonder what kind of response you were looking for when you posted this morning. Agreeing with you would encourage you and disagreeing with you would encourage you, and I didn’t want to encourage you in this past-is-future freakout. What were you looking for?
I honestly dont know.
We’re 12 days in and I’m wrecked (and willing to further destroy myself to stop this madness) I just dont agree that there is a playbook for this. They failed with Reagan and adjusted. Failed with W and adjusted. (but ground was gained both time)
It seems the new strategy is blitzkrieg. Shock an Awe directed at the people of this nation…. We already have Coons willing to be a ghetto guard, what happens when Dems like Tester and Nelson want to defend their seats?
Perhaps I’ll see a glimmer of hope of DeVos is rejected…. of course, that could have been the plan. I dunno. We are in uncharted waters and the best defense is to prepare for the worst case scenario while fighting against it.
I am appreciative however, of the “slaps in the face”. I hope more than anything that I look like a panicky fool in the near future…. In fact I spend a lot of time hoping I’m wrong.
Ben, you said it: We are in uncharted waters and the best defense is to prepare for the worst case scenario while fighting against it.
I’m more optimistic than you — I do have faith in collective action, and I am heartened by the investigative journalism and work of groups like the ACLU and CREW to work through the system. As well, I am glad to see cooperation between some of the large national single-issue groups with action calls and national strategy phone calls. Divide and conquer is the strategy and we can’t let that happen.
As someone who was not doing anything before the election, I can assure you that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more people are putting pressure on their elected representatives than were doing so just a few months ago. It’s catching.
Don’t destroy yourself. Defending our rights and democracy depends on each of us, but there are more and more of us involved now, so you can take a break now and then.