My, How Times (and Attitudes) Change

Your favorite Peasant recently came across an excerpt from
a U.S. Senate floor speech given by Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-MA) on November 13, 2013, regarding Republicans
implementing the filibuster in opposition to then-President
Obama's nominees to federal district and appellate court seats.
Gee, isn't it funny how the Dem's mind changes on certain things
when the White House changes hands! These are the words
of Senator Warren, published in The Wall Street Journal 
in that newspaper's April 1-2, 2017 weekend edition:

"We need to call out these filibusters for what they are ---
naked attempts to nullify the results of the elections of the last
presidential election, to force us to govern as though President
Obama had not won the 2012 election ... If Republicans
continue to filibuster these highly qualified nominees for no
reason other than to nullify the President's constitutional
authority, then Senators not only have the right ... but ...
a duty to change the filibuster rules.

"We cannot turn our back on the Constitution. We cannot
abdicate our oath of office. We have a responsibility to protect
and defend our democracy, and that includes protecting the
neutrality of our courts and preserving the constitutional
power of the President to nominate highly qualified people
to court vacancies."

Contrast these words to how Senator Warren and her fellow
Democrats in the Senate behaved when new President
Donald Trump began choosing nominees for court
vacancies, most notably the U.S. Supreme Court seat
vacated with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Happily, the Republican senators were able to stop
their filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch, who has the
most impressive qualifications and overall legal background
for being a Supreme Court justice since the late Judge
Robert Bork (remember him, and what the Democrats did
to both his nomination and his reputation?). So where was
Senator Warren's outrage when her fellow senate Democrats
did the same thing in an attempt to derail Judge Gorsuch?
For one thing, the Massachusetts senator worked and voted
with her colleagues on her side of the aisle to so derail
Trump's SCOTUS pick!

So much for Senator Warren's concern for the Constitution,
its provisions for the POTUS, our democracy (note to the
Senator: our government is not a democracy but a constitu-
tional republic. Check it out!), and the neutrality of our courts.
And it seems that she pays no mind to the results of the 2016
election either.

In closing, have a look at the way that the Republicans have
voted regarding the acceptance or rejection of President
Obama's nominees to the Supreme Court. Just for kicks,
go back to their votes on President Bill Clinton's choices.
They were more accommodating to these Democrat
presidents and their SCOTUS picks than their Democrat
counterparts have been to President Trump and his choice
of Judge Gorsuch, and going back, their votes on the picks
of both President Bushes and President Ronald Reagan.
The Republicans acknowledged the will of the electorate
in electing Democrat presidents and seeing them nominate
their people much more than have the Democrats in
considering the people favored by Republican presidents.
The Republicans focused on the education, the philosophies,
and the experience of the Democrat nominees; the Democrats
focused on the fact that the GOP presidents' choices were just
that --- the GOP presidents' choices for our top court, and the hell
with the results of the last presidential election, which clearly
demonstrated which direction the people wanted to go in,
giving the Dems conniptions.

Gee, isn't it funny?


MEM