Ash Wednesday’s universal message: Honor sacrifices made for our future

In the past ...

Ash Wednesday 2001 was also in February, just a few months after a close election decided by Bush v. Gore in December of 2000. I was a Catholic graduate theology student at a Methodist institution, in a suburb of Atlanta, filling my car up with gas. The station was literally across the tracks in a poorer part of town where the cheaper gas fit my budget. I had just come from a church that was hard enough to locate in the days before GPS.

Asking for directions to a Catholic church in the south often got me weird looks. And on that night, I had a big smudge on my forehead while I pumped my own gas. The night was dark and I wore a Syrian keffiyeh as a neck scarf against the cold.

When I went to pay, the Arabic employee just sort of stared at me. I was not his usual customer at this late hour in the evening. He didn’t quite know what to make of me. So he gestured with his hands as he fumbled for change. He pointed to my scarf and I said, “My sister in Washington, D.C., gave it to me.” Then he pointed to my head, which is when I realized I still had ashes there. “Why?” he asked. “What does it mean?” 

Since it was very cold and we both wanted to get back to our warm places, I fumbled with something quick to say. “It’s Ash Wednesday,” I said. But that didn’t get very far. “I’m Catholic … it’s a religious thing.”

I don't know what that conveyed to him, but that was as far as we got.

Less than a year later, I moved to D.C. to complete my theological training. I began my studies on September 11th. I stopped wearing my keffiyeh not long after when I rode the metro. During my studies, which included interfaith dialogue, I’ve gone back to that moment more than once.

I realize now, the simpler explanation could have been: “I am a sinner entering Lent.”

In the present ...

So here we are in 2021. Ash Wednesday this year falls after the 57-43 vote on Former 45’s second impeachment for the January 6 insurrection (our own self-inflicted 9/11). It also comes after Valentine's Day/Parkland Anniversary and the Super Bowl amid Black History Month to remind us of all the things we can cram into the shortest month. And like everything in 2021, the calendar cycles through a lens of how it’s not 2020, but we’re still not past its shadow either.

I don’t know whether mainstream media will make a big deal of Ash Wednesday with our second Catholic president. I suspect he might go to mass and would most likely have ashes imposed (perhaps placed on his forehead, perhaps sprinkled). 

The scripture readings for the day are a bit ironic. They talk about how to not make a show of yourself. For example, if you are fasting, you should still clean yourself up and go about your day. After all, what you are doing isn’t for others to see, but for God to see. At the same time, there is a collective call for a public gathering and display so that everyone in the community understands and commits themselves to this period of reflection and preparation in advance of Easter.

I will leave it to priests’ homilies and secular pundits to apply these things to our everyday lives. I have a habit of wanting to experience things anew, not simply to repeat them. While I enjoy rituals and traditions, I am much more interested in change and transformation. Lent always begins with Ash Wednesday. It’s always 40 days. It always involves fasting, abstinence, and works of charity. It always culminates in Easter and Jesus’ resurrection.

In short, as I used to say when I taught such things in parish ministry, HE always rises. Good for Him. The question is, what happened to us? How have we changed? How do I have a better answer for the stranger who was less concerned about me paying for gas and wanted instead to know more about me and why I was there?

The simplest thing I can say in 2021 is this. “Remember you are dust, and to dust, you shall return.” This is often what is said as the ashes are traced on foreheads in the sign of the cross. After 2020, mortality stares us in the face globally in a remarkable way. It’s the great equalizer. The baseline from which the human spirit arises in solidarity and acknowledgment of our inherent dignity. (Notions of pro-life don’t quite capture that.)

The other thing we Christians try to remember is that someone died for us and that calls us to change our lives radically. I don’t expect non-Christians or secular people to come to that exact same conclusion. But I think we can all look at 2020 or our lives before and acknowledge that sacrifices have been made and that people have died before us. And we owe them something. We need to do something to honor that debt and pay it forward.

  • We owe Officer Brian Sicknick and two other fallen officers for doing their duty on January 6, alongside the courage of Officer Eugene Goodman, who is still with us.
  • We owe our investment to better public health and safety for the 2.4M dead worldwide and 450K+ in the USA from COVID-19.
  • We owe our continued commitment to social justice in the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis.
  • We owe it to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, among so many other lives that matter to work for systematic change.
  • We need to dedicate ourselves to addressing climate change as at least 54 are reported dead and another 200 are missing in India after a glacier broke in the Himalayas.
  • We bear the burdens of 500+ children, separated from their families while trying to cross the border seeking asylum. They are still missing.

The list could and does go on. We all know loss of one kind or another. We all find hope somewhere that this is not the end for us. We have to be prepared. We have to get ready. Are 40 days enough? Are Biden’s first 100? Be resolved, we know what it has cost.

Somebody died for you. Make your life count for them.

Postscript ...

My first protest of the Trump era: Neighbors protesting the Muslim Ban Feb. 7, 2017, stand in solidarity outside ADAMS center in Sterling, Virginia, near Dulles airport, while Muslims come to pray.

I spent time with many Muslims in Atlanta aside from that gas attendant. Hassan was the chief of security at the museum where we both worked. He was a high-level engineer from Iraq, but this was the only job he could get in the states, perhaps because of his background as a soldier. I remember calling him from near the World Trade Center just moments after we first started bombing his country.

“It’s OK,” he said. “He’s a madman.” I also remember his last words to me before I left the area. “When I look at you, I see your keffiyeh and say to myself: There is my friend...

What Ginsberg Said Four Years Ago About Filling A SCOTUS Vacancy During An Election Year

While liberals continue to circulate and praise the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “fervent wish” that her seat isn’t filled until after the November election, they have not been as eager to share what she thought about filling vacancies to the nation’s highest court before the 2016 presidential election.

When the GOP blocked former President Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s seat through Republican-controlled Senate, Ginsburg instructed them to proceed with reviewing the nomination.

RELATED: AOC, Pelosi Hint Impeachment Should Be Considered To Stop Trump Supreme Court Selection

Most Democrats Believed The 2016 SCOTUS Vacancy Should Have Been Filled Before The Election

“That’s their job,” Ginsburg said to The New York Times. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year.”

Then-President Barack Obama said basically the same thing in 2016.

“When there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the president is to nominate someone, the Senate is to consider that nomination'” Obama said. “There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off-years.” That’s not in the Constitution text.”

Biden Said In 2016 That Not Appointing A SCOTUS Justice Could Result In A ‘Constitutional Crisis’

Not surprisingly, 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden is now saying filling Ginsburg’s vacant SCOTUS seat should wait until after the election, though in 2016, the then-vice president believed that blocking Garland might result in a “constitutional crisis.”

Hillary Clinton also believes the nomination process should wait – but that’s not what she necessarily thought about Garland’s appointment four years ago.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the 2016 election, “Every day that goes by without a ninth justice is another day the American people’s business is not getting done.”

 

The Republican National Committee shared a video on Sunday with examples of what Democratic leaders were saying in 2016 about filling a seat during an election year.

 

Cruz Agrees With Biden (Four Years Ago) – Failure To Nominate A Justice Could Lead To A ‘Constitutional Crisis’

Sen. Ted Cruz – similar to Democrats in 2016 – worries that an eight-member court hading into the election could pose a “constitutional crisis.”

“Democrats and Joe Biden have made clear they intend to challenge this election,” Cruz said Friday on Fox News “Hannity.”

“They intend to fight the legitimacy of the election,” he said. “As you know, Hillary Clinton has told Joe Biden ‘under no circumstances should you concede, you should challenge this election.’”

RELATED: Trump Fires Back After Obama Says He Shouldn’t Fill SCOTUS Vacancy

“And we cannot have Election Day come and go with a 4-4 Court,” Cruz told Sean Hannity.

“A 4-4 Court that is equally divided cannot decide anything,” the senator continued. “And I think we risk a constitutional crisis if we do not have a nine-justice Supreme Court, particularly when there is such a risk of … a contested election.”

The post What Ginsberg Said Four Years Ago About Filling A SCOTUS Vacancy During An Election Year appeared first on The Political Insider.

AOC, Pelosi Hint Impeachment Should Be Considered To Stop Trump Supreme Court Selection

Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) have hinted impeachment would be considered as a weapon to halt President Trump from filling a Supreme Court vacancy.

The vacancy arose following the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday.

Trump has vowed to nominate an individual to fill her seat while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced the nominee “will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and AOC (D-NY) demonstrated that they are in lockstep in trying to stop the Presidential’s Constitutional duty to select a replacement.

They’ve even gone so far as to wield impeachment – potentially – as a tool to accomplish their politically motivated goals.

RELATED: Fox News’ Harris Faulkner Tries To Explain Why Her Show Stopped Newt Gingrich From Discussing George Soros

Pelosi Refuses to Rule Out Impeachment

Pelosi appeared in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week,” where the topic of impeachment was broached by former Bill Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos discussed impeaching either President Trump or Attorney General William Barr.

“You and the House could move to impeach President Trump or Attorney General Barr as a way of stalling and preventing the Senate from acting on this nomination,” he suggested.

“We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now, but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country,” Pelosi replied.

She added, “This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election.”

When questioned again Pelosi claimed her oath to the Constitution would compel her to use every tool at her disposal.

“We have a responsibility. We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” she continued.

“We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people.”

Pelosi concluded: “When we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy, it requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”

RELATED: Kayleigh McEnany Hammers Media For Refusing To Ask One Question About Historic Middle East Peace Deals

AOC Suggests Impeachment As Well

If you thought Pelosi’s response was unhinged, you needn’t point to any further proof than the fact that AOC is on board with the idea.

Yes, the former bartender believes impeachment – a process reserved for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ – is a viable option.

“Would you be in support of potentially reviewing talks of impeachment hearings either against the attorney general or the president?” a reporter asked.

“These are procedures and decisions that are largely up to House Democratic leadership,” she deferred.

“But I believe that also we must consider, again, all of the tools available to our disposal, and that all of these options should be entertained and on the table.”

Take note that the reporters are the ones throwing out the impeachment suggestion, leading both Pelosi and AOC to comment on the matter.

It’s almost as if they’re working together to harness these wild and unhinged ideas into action.

Pelosi’s interview also raised questions as to whether or not she was reading off a teleprompter with her answer because of this curious exchange.

Let’s reiterate that exchange:

Stephanopoulos – “To be clear, you’re not taking any arrows out of your quiver, you’re not ruling anything out?”

Pelosi – “Good morning. Sunday morning. The, uh, we have a responsibility …”

This is strikingly similar to moments when Joe Biden has been caught reading words he wasn’t meant to read off of a teleprompter.

Did ABC feed her the question ahead of time for the answer to be queued up on the screen?

The post AOC, Pelosi Hint Impeachment Should Be Considered To Stop Trump Supreme Court Selection appeared first on The Political Insider.

Pelosi doesn’t rule out new impeachment inquiries to block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee

Appearing on ABC’s This Week on Sunday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi honored the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by aptly describing her as a “brilliant brain” on the Supreme Court, reminded people that it’s absolutely imperative to get out and vote this November, and the ongoing importance of battling the novel coronavirus pandemic. On the subject of the vacant Supreme Court seat, the Democrat from California didn’t rule out launching an impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump (for the second time) or Attorney General Bill Barr, which would delay the Senate’s ability to confirm a Supreme Court nominee of Trump’s, either. 

When host George Stephanopoulos hypothesized a major concern of progressives—that even if former vice president Joe Biden wins the election, Republicans and the White House might try to push through a nominee anyway in a lame-duck session—Pelosi replied: "We have our options.” The speaker continued, “We have arrows in our quiver that I'm not about to discuss right now but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country. This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election.”

She stressed that the “main goal” is ultimately to “protect the integrity of the election as we protect the people from the coronavirus." The speaker noted that she believed the late Ginsburg would want that same goal. Pelosi also clarified that “None of us has any interest in shutting down the government,” saying it would be too harmful to so many people in the nation.

“When people say, what can I do? You can vote,” the speaker stressed. “You can get out the vote, and you can do so as soon as possible.” She added that the same day we lost Ginsburg, ten states started early voting.

Stephanopoulos circled back to a potential impeachment inquiry and asked if the House would “rule anything out.” Pelosi drove home the basic tenant of public service: responsibility to the people. 

"We have a responsibility,” she stated. “We take an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States." (If only Trump saw it that way.) Pelosi continued: “We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people. When we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy, requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”

Here is that clip.

“We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now,” Speaker Pelosi tells @GStephanopoulos when pressed on what Democrats would do if Pres. Trump and Republicans push a SCOTUS nomination ahead of the Nov. 3 election. https://t.co/JhU93KY3iQ pic.twitter.com/HOmI8AxREN

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 20, 2020

Lastly, Stephanopoulos asked about another big topic among progressives: expanding the court. To that, Pelosi said, “Well, let's just win the election,” adding that she hopes the president will “see the light.” The speaker then used her final talking time to home in on the importance of the Affordable Care Act, and how much the average American has at stake in this election cycle. 

It’s time to get in Good Trouble to preserve the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Of course we’re crying. A woman who held us all up for so, so long has finally laid down her burden after the literal fight of a lifetime. We’re hurting. We’re afraid. We miss her already

But Republicans are already celebrating the death of pioneering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an opportunity. Donald Trump is calling on Republicans to act quickly to confirm whatever nominee he puts forward. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is contemplating whether a no-witnesses impeachment can be topped with a no-hearings confirmation. Ted Cruz is thinking about nothing except what he won’t be wearing under that black robe. Tom Cotton is speeding through his collection of KKK-approved all-white handkerchiefs mopping up all of the drool. And Josh Hawley is … probably shooting something.

There is absolutely no doubt that the GOP will now engage in the Hypocrisy Olympics, working hard to master the art of the 180-degree turn and racing to put Trump’s nominee across the line in record time. But a mere willingness start a hell-in-a-handbasket assembly line may not be enough to put another butt in Ginsburg’s seat on the Court before it even has a chance to cool. Democrats are not about to roll over. This is a fight worth having.

2020 may have robbed us of both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rep. John Lewis, but it’s time to get in Good Trouble. And there are multiple ways to fight.

“From where I sit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish was not that McConnell would do the right thing. She knew he wouldn't. It was that we would FIGHT LIKE HELL to preserve her legacy.” — Elie Mystal, The Nation

Hillary Clinton has offered a three-part plan for fighting against the rapid replacement of Justice Ginsburg: 

1) Win over GOP Senators on principle.

There are dozens of Republicans who barely finished articulating why there could not be a nomination for a Justice during an election year. Not only did many of them voice this in 2016, some of them have continued to do so over the last four years in the most adamant terms; terms that having included things like “even if this was a Republican president.” It’s included telling America to “use my words against me” if they didn’t hold true to this claim. It may seem that there are no Republicans left willing to stand up for any principle, especially one they created out of convenience in the last election cycle, but that feeds right into the next point.

2) Pressure GOP Senators in tight re-election bids.

There are definitely Republicans in red states who will feel like falling in line behind Trump and McConnell is the only option. But there are also those—like Susan Collins—who are already finding that standing too close to Trump is leaving them with radiation burns. Push them. Make this an issue. There’s absolutely no doubt that, no matter who Trump nominates, it will be some Federalist Society-approved ultraconservative, ready to tear down everything Justice Ginsburg accomplished and paint the nation in a shade of industrial repression gray. Make it clear that anyone voting for Trump’s nominee—anyone who even supports a vote on Trump’s nominee—is supporting the reversal of every gain made under Ginsburg. 

3) Use procedural obstacles in the Senate.

There are not nearly as many obstacles here as there used to be, because the idea that the Senate runs on rules has been simply discarded by McConnell—who regularly discards the idea of regular order to simply do as he pleases. Still, there are some shreds remaining. To start with, Democrats must refuse  a continuing resolution so long as there is any threat of McConnell forwarding a nominee. Unless there is a binding agreement—an agreement that goes way beyond McConnell’s word—shut it all the #$%@ down. In addition, Democrats must deny the Senate unanimous consent. Not just unanimous consent on the nomination, but on everything. The Senate has less than two weeks of scheduled sessions in the remainder of the year. Democrats need to deploy every possible roadblock to scheduling hearings, holding hearings, bringing a nominee forward, scheduling a vote … these are delaying tactics, and there’s little doubt that McConnell will run over them all. Only, if the polls start to show that Americans aren’t happy about the nominee or the process, McConnell might start to lose some of these procedural votes.

And Americans are already not happy.

In Times/Siena polls of Maine, North Carolina and Arizona released Friday, voters preferred Mr. Biden to select the next Supreme Court justice by 12 percentage points, 53 percent to 41 percent. In each of the three states, Mr. Biden led by just a slightly wider margin on choosing the next justice than he did over all.

According to that poll, the desire to see Biden pick the nominee is actually higher than the base support for Biden. This could very well mean that the importance of this issue gets driven home to Republicans up for reelection in a very visible way.

But if any of the above is going to happen, it’s also going to have to happen in the streets, on the phones, and in every forum where Democrats—and everyone else—can make it clear that the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg must be preserved at all cost. She carried us this far. Now we have to carry her dream.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body isn’t even cold and Mitch McConnell is dancing on her grave. This is war. Dems have powerful weapons. Now is the time to use them.

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) September 19, 2020

Will Republicans stand by their own statements, or join McConnell in the most profound hypocrisy?

Four years ago, Mitch McConnell infamously refused to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Instead, McConnell twisted a never-employed 1992 comment from Joe Biden into a “rule”: Nominees to the Court should not be considered in the year before an election. There was absolutely no justification, in law or in practice, for this rule, and while Republicans trotted out statement after statement claiming that they were following some sort of “tradition,” the truth was that McConnell invented this faux tradition whole cloth. 

Even before Donald Trump, McConnell recognized the fundamental flaw in the American Constitution—at too many points, it counts on the participants in the process of government to act with a sense of honor and commitment to the nation. The authors of that document assumed that commitment to country, and a fair dose of public pressure, made it unnecessary to cross every “T” on the to-do list. They did not contemplate the kind of men who were perfectly willing to ignore a president’s nominee to the Court, or to dismiss an impeachment without hearing a single witness. They didn’t contemplate the depth of partisanship that would make these cowardly actions something Republicans would celebrate and encourage.

Like Donald Trump and William Barr, Mitch McConnell saw that the rules as written gave him the power to grab hold of the process of democracy and strangle it. But McConnell wasn’t alone in the fantasy he spun in 2016; a long line of Republicans joined him in fabricating claims and statements, and went before the nation under the pretense of a rule that never existed. It’s clear—it’s long been clear—that McConnell is unconcerned about being caught in his lies. He’s a happy hypocrite, unconcerned with either public scorn or the verdict of history. After all, he expects the nation he’s creating through corruption of the judiciary to write that history. The questions now are: Who will join him, and can they be stopped?

As McConnell spun his rule straight from his nethers, Republicans in 2016 did the same thing that Republicans have long demonstrated as their primary attribute: They fell in line. And if falling in line required lying about Senate rules, the Constitution, or history, they were willing to go there, even if the lies were obvious. Mother Jones has compiled a list of Republican senators who, four short years ago, engaged in chest pounding over the wrong, wrong, wrongness of voting on a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. FactCheck.org has also compiled a set of statements made by Republicans in 2016—and after—that definitely need to be on the lips of every reporter, and constituent, who speaks to them from now until January. Finally, Cosmopolitan put together such a list back in February of 2017, for the express purpose of holding Republicans true to their own statements.

Of course every list is headed by McConnell.

Morning Joe put together a montage documenting Mitch McConnell's shameless flip-flop about the appropriateness of filling a SCOTUS seat in a presidential election year pic.twitter.com/Czc6dmPGbS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 29, 2019

John Cornyn (from his own website): “I believe the American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice, and the best way to ensure that happens is to have the Senate consider a nomination made by the next President.”

Ted Cruz:  “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”

Marco Rubio: “The Senate is not moving forward on it until after the election. Senator McConnell, the majority leader, has already made that clear. And I agree with that. There’s been precedent established over 80 years that, in the last year, especially in the last 11 months, you do not have a lame-duck president make a lifetime appointment to the highest court on the land.”

Also Marco Rubio: “Number one, I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term—I would say that if it was a Republican president."

Lindsey Graham: “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." pic.twitter.com/quD1K5j9pz

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) September 19, 2020

Cory Gardner: "I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision." (This statement was made in February 2016, 10 months before the upcoming election. Gardner at first said he would consider a nominee for Obama, before McConnell forced Gardner to recant.)

Jim Inhofe: “It makes the current presidential election all that more important as not only are the next four years in play, but an entire generation of Americans will be impacted by the balance of the court and its rulings. I will oppose this nomination as I firmly believe we must let the people decide the Supreme Court's future.”

Chuck Grassley: “Following the death of Justice Scalia, as Americans were beginning to cast their votes for the next President, I said that we’d move forward with the next President’s nomination to the Supreme Court, regardless of who won. The President has made his selection and that’s what we’ll do."

Also Chuck Grassley: “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.”

Still more Grassley: Grassley invited Merrick Garland to a breakfast meeting, not to consider him as a candidate, but to ”explain why he will not hold hearings.”

Joni Ernst: “We will see what the people say this fall and our next president, regardless of party, will be making that nomination.” 

Thom Tillis (from his own web site): “The campaign is already under way. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.” 

Ron Johnson: “I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court, by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate.”

In 2016, Susan Collins called for public hearings on Merrick Garland and praised the nominee. This was, of course, pre-falling in line.

Ditto for Lisa Murkowski, who at first supported holding hearings, only to come back and “revoke” her support after a conversation with Grassley. “Senator Murkowski respects the decision of the chair and members of the Judiciary Committee not to hold hearings on the nominee.” 

As a special bonus, here’s Ted Cruz—not just proclaiming that there should be no vote before the election, but warning about how Merrick Garland is exactly the kind of nominee you could expect … from Donald Trump: "Merrick Garland is exactly the type of Supreme Court nominee you get when you make deals in Washington D.C. A so-called ‘moderate’ Democrat nominee is precisely the kind of deal that Donald Trump has told us he would make—someone who would rule along with other liberals on the bench like Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor. We cannot afford to lose the Supreme Court for generations to come by nominating or confirming someone that a dealmaker like Donald Trump would support ... I proudly stand with my Republican colleagues in our shared belief—our advice and consent—that we should not vote on any nominee until the next president is sworn into office. The people will decide. I commend Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley for holding the line and ensuring that we the people get to exercise our authority to decide the direction of the Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights.”