The Senate Hearing is a Sham

The senate hearing for Amy Coney Barrett has me on edge. The size and makeup of her family doesn’t impress me, nor does it interest me. I don’t find it qualifying or disqualifying. There are a whole lot of other things about this rushed, forced, sham of a confirmation hearing that are worthy of our attention.

Barrett has shown she’s untrustworthy. Lots of “I’m not going to comment on that” and “I don’t recall hearing that.” Even an unwillingness to say even basic things like it’s illegal to intimidate voters. 

I mean. It’s 2020. What do you mean you “don’t have firm views on climate change?” What???

If she was trustworthy, and had moral convictions, she would say: I’m honored, I want the job, but let’s take this up in a few short weeks after the election.

Barrett knows the President backing her is immoral in every possible way. Can you imagine being of sound moral judgement and being willing to be placed on the court by an impeached President who doesn’t pay taxes, launders money for Russian oligarchs, has 26 credible sexual assault accusations filed in court against him, let 230,000+ preventable deaths happens on his watch, consistently shares misinformation and stokes hate that gets people killed, criminally uses public funds and resources for his personal enrichment, and who relishes humiliating his many wives, by publicly bragging about cheating on them?

Barrett knows that there is no mandate to rush to fill this seat. She knows there’s a pandemic and people are suffering and that holding this rushed, unusual, sham of a hearing means the Senate is being distracted from working to bring relief to the American people. Barrett can’t claim morality and go along with this. I appreciate ambition in women and can imagine she feels she has to grab this opportunity, no matter who is harmed, in order to elevate herself. But surely she must know she loses any moral credibility or trust by doing so. 

As we learned from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Barrett was specifically chosen by the Federalist Society, and recommended to Trump, to do six very specific things: overturn Roe v. Wade, overturn Gay Marriage, get rid of ACA/Obamacare, weaken the Civil Jury, weaken Corporate Oversight, and increase Voter Suppression. (If you have not watched Sen. Whitehouse’s 30 minute presentation during the hearings, please do so. It was excellent teaching. Don’t miss the part where he talks about the 80 cases with clear bias.)

Barrett knows this is why she was chosen. She knows this is what is expected of her. By participating in this sham she has agreed to the corruption. She also knows the bulk of the country doesn’t want any of those six things. Wanting to force them on a country that doesn’t want them, makes her a radical extremest. It makes her an elitist too — apparently her 3 years of experience as a judge has led her to believe she knows better than the rest of the country. (Can you imagine? Only three years as a judge and they think she’s ready for the Supreme Court?)

Is she expecting to be respected and beloved? She will be hated from day one by the most of the country. Because most of the country has no interest in overturning the ACA or Roe; has no interest in filling this seat before the election. Barrett won’t even be taken seriously by those who currently support her, because they know her Supreme Court Seat was bought and paid for. Just like Kavanaugh’s seat was bought and paid for.

We can even predict that religious-right-wingers, both men and women, will quickly turn against her because she’s a mother with young kids. They will be angry she isn’t home with the kids. They will complain that her clothes are wrong (her skirt didn’t cover her knees! the horror!); that she’s taking the spot of a worthy man who needs to support his family. They don’t actually like when women have power.

And not for nothing, Barrett should never have been on the appellate court in the first place. She took the spot of a Black woman named Myra Selby.

Which reminds me, if he gets to fill a Supreme Court seat, Biden has pledged to put a Black woman on the court, something that’s long overdue.

The whole rushed, sham of a hearing is an embarrassment. You know this and I know this because the Republicans promised to support the candidate before they even knew who it would be! Which means the hearing is just a show. It’s a joke. It’s yet another stain on our country put there by Republican corruption.

Please vote. Trump and the GOP is a disaster. Let’s show up at the polls in such a big way that they can’t come back. Click here for voting and registration info, and if you have questions about how it works, don’t be shy.

27 thoughts on “The Senate Hearing is a Sham”

  1. We voted in September, and are hoping to take the White House, House, and Senate so we can undo a lot of the unethical and immoral things Republicans, who can’t win without cheating, have put in place.

  2. I really wonder how long the Democrats are going to sit back and take what Trump and the Republicans dish out. Letting Trump, a disgraced, immoral, impeached, (hopefully) one-term President set the ideological tilt of the Supreme Court perhaps for decades to come! What will happen when Americans disown the Court’s legitimacy, because it is so out of step with the rest of American society and so many of its Justices were put there against the will of the majority of Americans? This is a dense but good read.

  3. Whitehouse’s testimony was an amazing expose of the dark money buying these judges seats. Riveting and terrifying. And it explains why we are ending up with these decisions that the majority of Americans don’t support. The Supreme Court is a lost cause (for now). We have to vote Trump and all of the spineless Republicans who don’t denounce him out.

  4. So well put. Thank you. I’ve struggled to organize all my thoughts about this. The point you make about her Showing her lack of morals by going along with this rush job is spot on.

  5. I could not agree more with your post’s title.
    Thank you for the links you have shared – they’re very informative.

  6. Should couldn’t even commit to saying that a president does NOT have unilateral right to postpone the date of an election, and it is literally written down in the Constitution and Federal law–and she claims to be a “textualist”. The TEXTS say:

    – Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states: “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

    – The 20th Amendment to the Constitution requires: “The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January … and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”

    – Title 3, Section 1, Chapter 1 of the U.S. Code specifies: “The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President.”

    To postpone the election would necessitate the Senate AND the House along with the president, clearly in black and white, and her answer was that she “would need to hear arguments.”

  7. I’m so thoroughly disgusted by her and this entire faux “process”. Her holding up a blank notebook was completely on point: she isn’t saying anything and we all know exactly why she’s there. Please everyone-get out to vote blue!

  8. Your posts are so cathartic for me. My head wants to explode when following this process. Thank you as always for articulating your thoughts and therefore helping people like me to articulate my tangle of thoughts!

    1. Yes! I feel the exact same way. Thank you for your clear and concise argument! I have such a hard time because I am so enraged by this whole process and reading Gabby’s words helps ME be able to articulate how I feel.

  9. Are we in a democracy anymore? This feels like a raw power grab in my opinion.
    It seems like we are in a country that I do not recognize with an autocrat at the top and millions of power hungry followers. I agree with you 100 percent.

  10. I am very glad I found your blog. You speak so eloquently about things that are frightening me. I’m a writer but I sometimes can’t find the words to express how hopeless I am feeling about our country’s, and my kids’ futures. I voted by mail, but I live in a blood red state so it might be a dead vote still it felt very freeing to send in that ballot. VOTE!

  11. Love every word of this, especially, “The size and makeup of her family doesn’t impress me, nor does it interest me.” I think I really needed to hear that from you, an ambitious woman with a big family. Thank you for everything, Gaby. You’re such a light.

  12. Gabrielle, I’m about to curse, so please delete this comment if you feel the need to:

    Amy Coney Barrett is a self-righteous, disdainful, arrogant, disingenuous, fucking liar.

    I didn’t have this same reaction even to Kavanaugh. She represents all the reasons why I have left the GOP forever. Thank you, Amy, McConnell, et al, for helping me reinforce my decision to vote blue for the rest of my life.

  13. People are voting. The election is already taking place. It is infuriating that evil Mitch McConnell and his dark money backers are placing this sham nominator on the Supreme Court. What an injustice to the American people. The US is slowly turning from a republic into an Oligarchy.

  14. The part that got me: She has been saying over and over that she wouldn’t comment on issues that might come before the court. Then she was asked about Griswold (the case that said states couldn’t ban contraception) and the right to privacy which is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Scalia said it was wrongly decided. She was asked if she agreed. She demurred again. Why? Because it is a case that will never come before her, so there is no purpose in discussing it. So, let’s get this straight: She won’t comment on cases that could come before her. She wont’ comment on cases that will never come before her. What’s the point of even asking questions?

  15. The 30 min. you tube video is a strong lesson on dark money, and how the there are puppets and puppeteers, and we are often the audience in reaction. Thank you for sharing all you have! I will say as awful as this confirmation hearing is, the ultimate ability to make and change laws should be in Congress, so we can still have the ability to change the course of our very scary period in history. Keep up the good fight!

  16. Amen to everything you have said about her, and on a side note, am I the only mother who was pretty shocked she brought her children to the hearings where members of Congress who REFUSED to be tested for Covid-19 (and MIKE LEE who had tested POSITIVE) appeared mask-less and spoke? The Rose Garden ceremony was bad enough, but after that we KNEW for sure people were contagious and spreading. As a mom, that just really struck me, who would do that?

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