Sammy Alito-- The Worst Of The Supremes... And The Democrats Who Allowed Him To Be Confirmed

With the retirements of Tim Johnson (D-SC) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and the defeats of Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) this year, only 3 Democrats remain in the Senate who were among the 19 Dems who voted with the GOP on January 30, 2006 to cut off debate and, in effect, allow Alito to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. The remaining Alito-Democrats still voting in the Senate today: Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Bill Nelson (D-FL). It's worth noting that both Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were two of 25 Democrats who voted against ending the debate. In other words, both were serious about not confirming the calamity the Democrats well know was looming for the country in the form of Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito. Even conservative Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Evan Bayh voted against cloture.

A man with virtually no ethical standards of decency, Alito is the ultimate hack judge for the corporatocracy and for conservative-- or even reactionary-- Establishment power. He is not, nor has he ever been, a man to question authority or, worse, authoritarianism. The only Republican to vote against Alito was Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, who stated flatly that "I am a pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-Bill of Rights Republican, and I will be voting against this nomination." I announcing their opposition to conformation, the American Civil Liberties Union, which had only opposed two Supreme Court nominees in its entire history, was prescient. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero justified the decision by saying that "At a time when our president has claimed unprecedented authority to spy on Americans and jail terrorism suspects indefinitely, America needs a Supreme Court justice who will uphold our precious civil liberties. Unfortunately, Judge Alito's record shows a willingness to support government actions that abridge individual freedoms."

No Democrat who voted to allow Alito to be confirmed didn't know what they were agreeing to. A pig for sure, but a pig in a poke he wasn't. Predictably, Alito has been on the wrong side of ever Supreme Court decision-- no exceptions-- since ascending to the Court, from Citizens United, Hobby Lobby and Hamdan v Rumsfeld, to McCutcheon and Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire . Needless to say, he had also been in the minority that tried to throw out the Affordable Care Act by circumventing the Constitution. Alito has clearly always going to be the most grubbily partisan member of the Court-- with an agenda to turn back the clock on working families overall and especially on women. He has been the best friend of the Chamber of Commerce on the Court, even worse than Scalia.

Why bring this up today, almost a decade later? The DCCC is, once again, out recruiting conservatives to run for Congress. Ben Ray Luján has already shown himself to be a make-no-waves carbon copy of the execrable and disastrously failed Blue Dog Steve Israel. He's working on re-recruiting pathetic failure Emily Cain, a New Dem, in Maine and a Republican, Monica Vernon, in Iowa. And, a man with no vision whatsoever, he's looking towards Blue Dog Mike McMahon or anti-Choice Democrat Mike Cusick to run in the special election for the seat Michael Grimm was just forced to resign from. What does that have to do with Alito being confirmed as a Supreme Court justice? Fill the party's lower benches up with hacks like Cain, Vernon, McMahon and Cusick and eventually you wind up with compromised corrupt conservatives like Pryor and Landrieu casting the deciding votes on nominees like Alito. It's why we have to be absolutely vigilant and work to prevent the DCCC from slipping ever more right-wing Democrats into the congressional delegation. Count on Blue America to do just that-- all through 2015 and 2016.