GOP Risking Lives with Barrett Vote

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Former White House aide Hope Hicks traveled with Donald Trump a couple of times this past week and was thought to have been the one who carried the coronavirus infection to Trump.  But now it is beginning to look as though our continually mask-less leader may have had the virus as early as last weekend - before the close encounters with his good friend, Miss Hicks.

One week ago today, on Saturday, September 26th, Donald Trump hosted a large gathering in the Rose Garden of the White House where he officially made the announcement that he was nominating conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  That event, though held outdoors, featured a mostly mask-less audience seated on tightly packed folding chairs.  

As of this morning at least six of the individuals at that Rose Garden event have tested positive for coronavirus.  They include:   Donald and Melania Trump, former presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, John L. Jenkins - the president of Notre Dame University, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Senator Mike Lee of Utah.  

After all of that information became public, the White House decided to reveal that Judge Barrett herself had tested positive for the coronavirus last summer. 

Many Republican dignitaries were at the Rose Garden event last Saturday.  Senator Lee was observed hugging numerous attendees, and both infected senators, Lee and Tillis, sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the group that will officially screen and interview Judge Barrett for the seat on the high court. Missouri's junior senator, Josh Hawley, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, was seated, mask-less, on the second row at the Rose Garden event.  Hawley has not yet made any comment regarding his health status.

Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court is a critical element in the GOP's half-century quest to overturn the court's decision in Roe V. Wade, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated unequivocally that a minor inconvenience like a worldwide deadly pandemic will not derail their mission to create a solid conservative majority in the court.  He said that regardless of the regrettable situation with the two senators on the Judiciary Committee being infected, the nomination of Judge Barrett will proceed "full steam ahead."

Some Republicans are saying that with these current dire circumstances in effect, this would probably be a good time to proceed with senators being allowed to participate "remotely" in the hearing on Judge Barrett.  Some Democrats are saying that the hearing is far too important to allow for the inconvenience and distraction of remote participation.  

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York is demanding that the hearing be put on hold for the time being,  and McConnell is insisting that there will be no delays.

Mitch McConnell, who was apparently not at the Rose Garden event, is declining to say when he was last tested for coronavirus, and so far there have been no reports of him and Senator Lee hugging in the Rose Garden or anywhere else.

So as it now stands, the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court will begin on Monday, October 12th, and probably run for four days before the nomination is approved and forwarded to the full Senate for confirmation.  But also bear in mind that this is 2020 and anything - ANYTHING - can happen to upend the anticipated order of things.

It continues to be a bumpy ride!