Now he's not anybody's president

Nice guy but not SCOTUS material

Yesterday I felt trapped by the unrolling drama in Washington, D.C., in the House Intelligence Committee.  

I couldn't turn it off, but I couldn't believe my ears.

Today I turned on MSNBC and became equally engrossed in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as senators quizzed Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

I felt favorably disposed toward Gorsuch as the day began.  Yeah, he's conservative, but he's from Colorado (cue: Rocky Mountains, blue skies between thunderstorms, mining towns, farming  & ranching, ski runs, wildlife).  He's handsome in an old-guy way.  He seems like a nice person.  He's the best nominee we're likely to see during the dt presidency, so he's a shoo-in.

But then he opened his mouth.  He explained why he made a ruling against truck driver Alphonse Maddin, who was fired from  TransAm after briefly abandoning his truck on a sub-zero winter night.  

Gorsuch said that the driver's only options were to stay with the truck (and possibly freeze to death) or drive the truck with stuck brakes.  Instead the driver unhitched the cab and drove it in search of help, returning in 15 minutes.  Gorsuch agreed with TransAm; Maddin remained fired and never got trucking work again.

https://thinkprogress.org/watch-al-frankens-shut-down-gorsuch-s-cruel-decision-in-the-frozen-trucker-case-601ffbc39118#.rdi83xtrv

Next Sen. Orrin Hatch invited Gorsuch to explain why he wrote a concurring opinion in the Hobby Lobby case.  Gorsuch explained that HL is owned by a family that plays Christian music in the stores, keeps stores closed on Sunday, etc.  If they wanted to avoid any link to abortion funding for their employees, they had that right because a "person" has religious rights and in this case the HL corporation was a "person... like other religious institutions."  

Once again, Gorsuch stretched to interpret the letter of the law, not its spirit.  I decided that I am against him being confirmed, even if he is the most reasonable candidate Republicans can find.  He focuses on technicalities and ignores the spirit and meaning of the law.

 https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4662465/senator-hatch-questions-gorsuch-hobby-lobby-rfra&start=514

Meanwhile, I tweeted.  By reading other tweets, I learned that, however great a judge Gorsuch may be, many Democrats resent his being interviewed for the job:

1) after being nominated by a president who may have been elected while his campaign team worked together with Russians

2) after being nominated by a president under investigation by the FBI for this possible collusion with Russians,

3) after being nominated by a president who promised long and loud to nominate someone who would oppose abortion rights and do his best to overturn Roe v. Wade, and

4) after Republicans refused to allow President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, to come before any committee or the full House or Senate for questioning and a possible vote on his nomination--for 293 days, more than twice as long as any previous person nominated to the Supreme Court.

I did some errands.  I went to see my therapist.  I listened to some analysis of the last two days of hearings.

By 10 pm I realized that the US no longer has any president at all.  There's no one with a hand on the helm of this ship.  

It's crazy to allow this illegally elected president to tip the Supreme Court to the right.  

Republicans held up Merrick Garland for 293 days, and now they want Democrats to listen and vote on their unstable president's nominee.  Forget it.  

You only have a nominee if a legally elected, sane president makes the nomination.

We have a circus going on this week--FBI, NSA, DOJ, an attempt to push through an unjust new medical plan.  Rushing through a SCOTUS decision on top of all this is crazy.

Wait until dt's election is validated, his lies stop, and his mind becomes clearer.