Rockin' chair money

 It's been a rough week. If you haven't heard by now because you don't follow politics - and if that's the case, why in God's name are you reading this blog - but Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away yesterday evening. She died because of complications from pancreatic cancer she'd been suffering for years. She was 87 and while I'm not going to go into detail about her career - there's good and there's bad - but do know the left lost one of their strongest allies on the Court, the right is almost tumescent with glee, and shit is about to get wild.

 I did a deep-ish dive last night about what her death means for life in Washington, D.C., how a new justice will be chosen, and what kind of monkey wrench this will throw into the election. We'll get a little more into that in a bit, but let's get the rest of this week's News linked up. Mother Nature giving us the finger was the main theme this week. Monday talked about the Pacific Northwest's burning and Wednesday tagged it by talking about how Hurricane Sally kicking the shit out of the Alabam and Florida Gulf Coast.

 We also touched on the accusation made by a former nurse at a Georgia ICE facility that the weird fuckers there were removing the uteruses of detainees without their consent or knowledge. Before the news about Ginsburg's passing knocked it out of the cycle, it was starting to get a little traction in both the halls of Congress and the corporate media. I hope it doesn't get buried and forgotten because that is some truly horrific shit. If we decide as a culture that we're fine with that, I don't know if I want to keep up with it anymore. It's bad enough we're fine as a society with being shot dead by cops because they feel like it.

 Anyhow. RBG and the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell didn't wait until her body was cold before announcing his intention to fill her seat as quickly as possible. Senators like Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham basically said they were lying about supporting the McConnell Rule back in 2016. Hell, Graham's even on video saying "use this against me".

 We shouldn't be surprised at any of it. Anyone who thinks anyone in the GOP has any integrity or honor deserves what they get. Furthermore, the idea that politics is a game for the dainty should be buried. Although it's unprecedented and reveals the party's screaming hypocrisy, there is nothing about Trump trying to shove a new justice in before the election that isn't allowed by the Constitution. That's politics, baby.

 Some Republican thinkers are pointing this out, though those same ones will squeal like stuck pigs when/if the Democrats do the same thing. There's been talk if Trump does nominate a justice and the Senate does vote them through with quickness that Joe Biden should pack the courts if he wins the election. One of the reasons we have nine justices is at the time it was decided we had nine U.S. circuit courts. We've got 13 now.

 I'm not sure about how I feel about it, but I do know the Republicans would throw a screaming na-na while the corporate press ruefully shakes its collective head and complains about "cancel culture." One thing I do find interesting about this is conservatives using the argument that a 4-4 Court might cause a Constitutional crisis if there's something hinky about the election. Number one, it tells me they're shaky on the idea that Trump will win reelection and, two, they intend to make something hinky happen.

 But it also tells me they don't feel as if everyone's on the same team, because by any other measurement, Republicans would have a solid 5-3 majority. Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, has made a few decisions lately that while they do follow the letter of the law, they go against Republican interests. This too is not without precedent. Nominated by Dwight Eisenhower, Earl Warren headed one of the most radical courts of all time with regards to civil rights. Brown vs. The Board of Education, Miranda vs. Arizona, and Loving vs. Virginia were all under his rubric and it wasn't odd to see billboard throughout the South that said "Save America, Impeach Earl Warren."

 Maybe we're looking at that sort of thing with Roberts. Liberals would do well to not put too much faith in him - you'd think they'd learn their lesson in this post-Mueller age - but an argument has been made that he'd rather not be known as a full-on Republican toady. The Court has always been a fairly conservative entity, but that doesn't necessarily mean Modern American Conservatism.

 But it's all too early to tell. Likely as not, Trump will have a nomination in the water by the end of next week. He floated some names earlier in the week to troll the libs, like Cruz and pencil-necked fascist Tom Cotton. He said at one of his rallies tonight he plans on picking a woman and the mainstream party apparatchiks seem to have a hard-on for Amy Coney Bennett, a judge on the Seventh Court of Appeals.

 Time will tell. One way or another, it's about to get weird, stupid, and ugly, and it started out pretty deep in all three. Get a helmet, neighbors, and buckle up.