Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has died — Trump to get another Supreme Court nomination

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has died, the Supreme Court announced on Friday.

“Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature,” Chief Justice John Roberts said. “We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tired and resolute champion of justice.”

President Donald Trump is now free to nominate a third candidate for the nation’s highest court after having Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed by the United State’s Senate.

There goes that branch of government.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dead At 87

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon who served on the Supreme Court since 1993 and who crusaded for women’s rights before that, died on Friday at the age of 87.

Ginsburg died from complications of cancer, according to the Supreme Court. She died Friday evening surrounded by her family at her home in Washington.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, supreme court justice, dies aged 87

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, blocked Barack Obama from filling a court vacancy in March 2016, eight months before the presidential election that year, claiming that the window of time was too narrow and saying the slot had to be held for the next president to fill.

McConnell has indicated that he would race to confirm any Trump court nominee at any time before the 2020 election, however.

Of course he will.

And you know that thing that knocked that thing off the news cycle? And the thing before that and the thing before that? Well, this is all we're going to hear about until McConnell forces this through.

This is why Trump is Teflon. Because every one of the hundreds of political-career-ending things he's done has been knocked off the news cycle by some other crazy thing, or some real world disaster, and there's never enough time to pin him down. How long did it take to wear Nixon down? We can't seem to focus on anything for more than three days.

All eyes on Lindsey Graham after passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The question on whether to hold hearings is ultimately up to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham is an interesting situation due to the timing, as there’s a good chance Republicans will lose control of the Senate in January.

Graham is also under pressure to spend as much time as possible back home in South Carolina, as he’s facing a credible re-election threat from Democrat Jaime Harrison.

So the future of the country is in the hands of Lindsey Graham? Sure, he can't dare cross Trump or McConnell, but OTOH he can't afford to spend the next few weeks in Washington instead of campaigning. Or does that even matter during the pandemic?

It's all above my pay grade.

Also Lindsey Graham, from 2018: "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."

So I bet that the spin is going to be that it's totally different than last time because it was the end of Obama's second term, and this is the end of Trump's first term. See? Totally different.

And how will this affect other Senate races? Can Susan Collins risk voting for another Trump nominee? Or does she accept that she isn't going to win and vote her conscience? Does she have one?

This is from 8 days ago:
Trump unveils list of possible Supreme Court picks if re-elected

Here are all the new names on the president's list:

Judge Bridget Bade, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Daniel Cameron, Kentucky attorney general
Paul Clement, former solicitor general
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas
Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Steven Engel, assistant attorney general at the Justice Department
Noel Francisco, former solicitor general under the Trump administration
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri
Judge James Ho, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge Greg Katsas, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Barbara Lagoa, 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Christopher Landau, U.S. ambassador to Mexico
Justice Carlos Muniz, Florida Supreme Court
Judge Martha Pacold, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Judge Peter Phipps, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge Sarah Pitlyk, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
Judge Allison Jones Rushing, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Kate Todd, deputy White House counsel
Judge Lawrence VanDyke, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

My bold prediction: Trump puts it up for bid on eBay.

And here's where I try to embed some tweets. Wish me luck.

This is a likely scenario. McConnell wanted to stall on Garland partly to juice GOP turnout. After that the question is whether Murkowski, Romney, Collins, Gardner and others go along with it https://t.co/GgjymTqmEQ

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) September 18, 2020

BREAKING: A high-level Romney insider tells me Mitt Romney has committed to not confirming a Supreme Court nominee until after Inauguration Day 2021. #Mittrevenge #utpol

— Jim Dabakis (@JimDabakis) September 19, 2020

McSally calls for the Senate to vote for President Trump's nominee. Second Republican senator in a tough race, along with GA Sen. Loeffler, to call for this. https://t.co/fGH0ORygXL

— James Arkin (@JamesArkin) September 19, 2020

>@TuckerCarlson just read a statement from McConnell saying trumps nominee will get a vote on the floor. Nothing more.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) September 19, 2020

Talk about a Friday night news dump...

Senator Murkowski said she will not vote for Ginsburg’s replacement before an election

In an interview shortly before it was announced that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away from complications from pancreatic cancer, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told a reporter that she would not vote for a Supreme Court replacement with less than 50 days before the election.

I wonder if now, a few hours later, she still feels that way?