Supreme Over-Reaction – USA Gov Policy

The response to the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been, to say the least, over the top.

To be clear, whether it is an election year or not, the President has the absolute, constitutional right to nominate a candidate to fill the vacancy. The Appointments Clause, found in the Constitution’s Article II, Section 2, clause states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Judges of the Supreme Court.” There is no prohibition on doing so in an election year. The Senate has the right to accept or decline the candidate. Both parties have played the game of trying to either rush to the finish line or wait out the clock, depending on whether they control the White House or not.

In 2016, when the tables were reversed and Obama was in the Oval Office, Joe Biden said that it was the “constitutional duty” of the president to fill the vacancy, even in an election year. He has reversed himself. The Republicans have also taken the opposite position this year.

Normally, one would call this politics as usual, except for the extreme and verbally violent nature of the Democrat response to the White House announcement of its intention to engage in the process before the election. It brings up the uncomfortable reality that the current crop of Democrat Party leaders are more than willing to burn down the Republic in their bid to gain power.

“Squad” leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said the President was “Playing with fire” if he proceeds with a nomination, and openly implied that violence in the streets was an appropriate response. Nancy Pelosi, in complete defiance of the Constitution, threatens to impeach Trump—again!—for merely doing his constitutional duty. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, (D-NY) who famously introduced legislation to weaken the First Amendment, warns that if his party regains control, it will “pack the court” with justices exceeding the tradition-honored number of nine, in an effort to ensure that justices with his point of view gain the majority. Demonstrators have gone to the home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) in an effort to intimidate him.

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These inappropriate moves must be seen in combination with other wholly unacceptable acts and comments that have unfolded during this election season. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, the architect of the Obama Administrations’ still unexplained tilt away from traditional American allies in the Mideast and towards the terrorist-sponsoring nation of Iran, has said that “all bets are off” if Trump wins. Hillary Clinton has urged Biden to “never concede under any circumstances” the election.

In several states, Democrats have pushed the notion that signatures need not be verified on mail in ballots, an open invitation to fraud.

None of these inflammatory statements and actions can be seen as business as usual. They are a profound and extreme break from the time-honored American tradition of a peaceful transition of power, which has kept the nation intact since its founding, except, of course, for when, in an effort to preserve slavery, Democrats split from the Union and commenced the Civil War.

Politics is certainly a rough endeavor, and tempers can and will flair. But not since the Civil War has the rhetoric been so violent, and, frankly, so wrong. The nation could never have lasted for so long had the willingness to put party ahead of country, clearly demonstrated by the use of outrageous rhetoric and the condoning of violence in the streets by leading leftist and progressive politicians, been utilized as it is currently.

Photo: U.S. Supreme Court (Pixabay)

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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