Donald Trump and his sycophantic Republican colleagues rammed through Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court while Americans are voting in the presidential election. While the GOP may feel that it will energize its base with this blatant coup of the highest court in the land, the move actually diminishes the Supreme Court in the people’s eyes. In my opinion, Trump installed Barrett in case he takes the election results to the Supreme Court.
Minutes before Republicans in the Senate voted to confirm Barrett on Monday evening, the court, Mother Jones reports, issued a 5-3 decision to throw out mail-in ballots in Wisconsin that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward. According to the outlet, that’s a stark contrast from April when the Supreme Court allowed 80,000 late-arriving votes to be counted in Wisconsin’s primary.
Trump also installed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, who delivered a very Trumpian warning to say that any votes that came in after Election Day could be viewed as illegitimate.
Kavanaugh wrote: “States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after Election Day and potentially flip the results of an election.”
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“And those States also want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, or as soon as possible thereafter,” he added.
Kavanagh’s ruling was released nearly the same time that Trump tweeted: “Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA. Must have final total on November 3rd.”
Jinkies, what a coincidence.
Justice Elena Kagan issued her dissenting opinion to rebuke Kavanaugh, writing: “There are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted. And nothing could be more ‘suspicio[us]’ or ‘improp[er]’ than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on Election Night. To suggest otherwise, especially in these fractious times, is to disserve the electoral process.”
Kavanaugh claims that he wants to avoid chaos, but Trump has been sowing chaos with this election for months.
And then there’s this:
Trump has openly admitted that he wanted Barrett confirmed before the election so that she could provide the decisive vote for him in any post-election dispute over the counting of mail ballots, in a repeat of Bush v. Gore.
Conservatives are afraid of Americans voting. That doesn’t sound like they’re very confident with Trump winning the election legitimately. And now we have a very conservative-leaning Supreme Court that has very little integrity left. Hopefully, Neil Gorsuch won’t take part in this coup — but Trump installed him, too. We already know what Kavanaugh will do.
This is a reminder that Trump’s debt totals at least $1.1 billion. If Trump wins the re-election, about $900 million of it will come due during his second term — and we don’t know who the president owes that money to.
You can read Mother Jones’ report here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
