The Late John Paul Stevens retired after 34 years of service. He also was a registered Republican. He was replaced on May 10, 2010, by Elena Kagan. That would bring three women to the court.
The death of Judge Scalia came on February 13, 2016. The death occurred while McConnell was Majority Leader of the US Senate. March 6, 2019, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Merrick Garland was nominated by President Barak Obama to replace Judge Scalia.
There was absolutely no other person as qualified or non-partisan as Judge Garland. He should be sitting on the court today for the wisdom and insight he could have brought with him, but, McConnell decided to throw an ideological hissy fit and withheld any nomination hearings until Neil Gorsuch was nominated from the Federalist Society.
The Federalist Society, a private organization, has placed Robert, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch on the Supreme Court under Republican presidents.
The Federalist Society receives 90% of its funding from individuals and foundations; the other 10% comes from corporations. It must be a real head trip to single-handedly place four, soon to be five Supreme Court justices with biased ideas of the world in the USA. Admittedly, quite an accomplishment.
Such an accomplishment is not beneficial to the USA in that those nominations come with expectations of an agenda by a private organization. No wonder private corporations rally round it.
May 21, 2019
By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg
Leonard Leo (click here) stepped onto the stage in a darkened Florida ballroom, looked out at a gathering of some of the nation's most powerful conservative activists and told them they were on the cusp of fulfilling a long-sought dream.
For two decades, Leo has been on a mission to turn back the clock to a time before the U.S. Supreme Court routinely expanded the government’s authority and endorsed new rights such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Now, as President Trump’s unofficial judicial adviser, he told the audience at the closed-door event in February that they had to mobilize in “very unprecedented ways” to help finish the job.
“We’re going to have to understand that judicial confirmations these days are more like political campaigns,” Leo told the members of the Council for National Policy, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post. “We’re going to have to be smart as a movement.”...
Political campaigns. Really.
I digress. McConnell. When Merritt Garland was nominated Mitch McConnell could have easily been proud to confirm a highly qualified judge for the country's first Black American President. But, no, Mitch had to bow to those he felt would better be benefitted from the opening on the Supreme Court, the Federalist Society.
An entire year the US Supreme Court was absent a justice because the Majority Leader of the US Senate didn't feel like sitting a qualified justice, instead, he played politics with it. That is corruption at the highest levels of the US Senate.
TODAY, in ads and speeches the Supreme Court opening is being held up as a political and ideological victory. What gives McConnell the right to jeopardize decision making by the Supreme Court and stack the deck against those that solicit opinions.
Now, this is where it gets interesting. The Federalist Society received Dark Money to push Kavanaugh and Gorsuch through there nomination process. $22 million dollars BOUGHT AND PAID FOR KAVANAUGH and Gorsuch. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford didn't have a chance despite her forthright truth-telling.
May 17, 2020
By Anna Massoglia and Andrew Perez
The conservative “dark money” organization (click here) that spearheaded controversial Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation received $22 million in anonymous donations in the year before the 2018 court fight, newly released tax records show.
The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, pledged to spend as much as $10 million to ensure Kavanaugh’s confirmation — the same amount that it spent to help confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017. JCN has close ties to Trump’s judicial adviser Leonard Leo, a longtime executive at the Federalist Society, the influential conservative and libertarian lawyers network based in Washington, D.C.
More than three-quarters of the funds JCN raised between July 2017 and June 2018 came in the form of a $17 million contribution from a single anonymous donor, according to its latest tax return, which was obtained by MapLight and OpenSecrets. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in June 2018, paving the way for Kavanaugh’s nomination.
JCN’s filing lists nine other anonymous contributions, none smaller than six figures....
But, where did the money go?
Chuck Grassley of Iowa - $1,356,543 donations from ideological groups. Which is more than 10 percent of his donations. That is corruption with a capital C because the only ideology any Senator is supposed to PLEDGE HER OR HIS LOYALTIES to is the United States of America's Constitution.
But as to McConnell.
McConnell could have placed the third Justice for a historic service of our first African American president, but, instead, he decided to play ideological poker. Mitch McConnell is among the first to condemn White Supremacists, but, the Federalist Society isn't known so much for a racist agenda so much as an oppressive religious agenda. It never ceases to amaze me the number of religious political groups with absolutely no relationship to any particular religion or religious leader. Where do they get the moral authority to upend the United States Supreme Court and buy out a Senate majority leader for the ideological voters they can deliver?
Now, McConnell is strutting like a peacock because his ideological dream is about to come true in sitting another ideologue on the Supreme Court. He is proud to say this is his third in three years. Indeed. But, if he was seeking claim to sitting three justices in his tenure, why wasn't it Merrick Garland as the first?
It is no secret that Judge Garland can run circles around Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. So there is McConnell's great accomplishment, selling out the best judge for the court and substituting Federal Society fair-haired boys. That is an accomplishment? I hope anyone reading this can see the hypocrisy and the lack of loyalty to the USA Constitution to have it's best warriors on the court.
And, by the way, I still can't see an accounting for the $22 million in a public venue to understand where all that money went. $22 million dollars. Most US House candidates and US Senators don't have that size campaign fund. As of 2019, McConnell's war chest was a little less than $13 million (click here).
