President Barack Obama is considering a scheme — a so-called legal “nuclear option” — to guarantee his nominee is on the Supreme Court. And his plan could work, even if a Republican wins the presidential election in November, according to a source close to the Obama administration.
The 2016 presidential election is supposed to be the ultimate decision on the fate of the High Court. But Obama may join with Senate Democrats in ramming through a judicial activist, no matter how the people vote.
The ex-Obama adviser says a few items would have to fall into place for the court-packing proposal to work.
If Republicans win the White House in November, President-elect Trump or Cruz would name a more conservative justice in place of Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee.
But if Democrats win the Senate, President Obama would have just enough time to put a liberal justice on the court for a lifetime.
Under the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, senators are sworn in on January 3rd, but the new president won’t take office until January 20th.
That gives Barack Obama and Senate Democrats 17 days to subvert the will of the people – and according to what a former Obama administration lawyer told NBC News, the president is considering doing just that.
The Democrats need to win five seats to gain control the Senate. Pundits say that would be difficult, but not impossible, this fall.
Once sworn in, the new Democratic Senate can eliminate the filibuster – just like Sen. Harry Reid did to foist Obama’s judges on the nation in 2013 — and confirm Obama’s Supreme Court pick before the new president ever takes the oath of office.
“If a Democratic Senate comes in on January third, President Obama could send in his Supreme Court nomination. Then Democrats could apply the ‘nuclear option’ to Supreme Court nominations, and vote in Obama’s nominee by a simple majority,” the former attorney said.
The filibuster requires that the Senate have a super-majority to move forward. Eliminating it would mean that senators could rubber stamp a nominee with 51 votes.
The anonymous Obama official said the Democrats have no problem disregarding the national vote in November. “If Republicans act in a way that jeopardizes Senate seats, then it doesn’t matter who wins the presidential election,” the lawyer said.
Obama has hinted that Democrats could justify the extraordinary move as “tit-for-tat” for the GOP’s “unprecedented” obstruction.
Judge Merrick Garland is considered a moderate liberal. But there’s no guarantee that Garland would be Obama’s final nominee.
Obama might be tempted to substitute a more liberal activist judge after being repudiated in a national election.
That kind of substitution wouldn’t be unusual from left-wing Democrats. They used a similar bait-and-switch process called “reconciliation” to pass ObamaCare in 2010. The Democrat-controlled Congress passed a bill, deleted its text, and substituted the Affordable Care Act in its place.
It would be fitting if Obama ended his presidency the same way.
This plan, revealed by the former Obama confidant, would be the most extreme Hail Mary pass to institutionalize Obama’s form of radical extremism. The administration has softer means at its disposal. As The Horn News reported, Barack Obama could use a Constitutional loophole to force the Senate to consider his Supreme Court nominee – but Republicans wouldn’t have to act in that case.
But for a losing party’s lame duck president to put an activist judge on the Supreme Court for life would be the ultimate liberal dream.
– The Horn News editorial team
A full effort to put a political hack in a robe who will vote the right way on the bench.
Dear God…..will this unqualified community organizer EVER be satisfied with destruction that he and Harry Reid have done to our nation? I simply don’t recognize the country I was raised in. This has been a national nightmare.
ou have it!
He said he would change things. He has.
The option word is for “life”. Funny how Justice Scalia died and everything was hushed up so quickly. Remember there are only 4 of those liberals on the court and this would make 5. Only about 5% fought for the Colonies to kick King George’s ass and sent him back to England. What percentage of the people today are fed up with the corruption in Washington?
100%!
Given his ‘Political Position’ and the ‘circumstances’ that prevailed at the time … it was VERY UNUSUAL that an autopsy was not run and so much else seems to go ‘unmentioned’. Being 73 and having followed OUR government’s activities since my sophomore year in high school … something like this would normally have been checked to see if, in deed, there might have been ‘an inflicted death’. However, since Obama got into office, OUR nation has been on a ‘down hill slide’ into Hell. I was raised only the only (at that time) the real source of true news, the Spotlight Newspaper that my Dad got. The government finally set them up and shut them down. However, they reformed as the AFP(American Free Press) and they are still exposing the ‘other side’ of OUR government. OUR government controlled news media is ‘very selective’ about ‘Letters to the Editor’ and individual ‘articles’ that they will print.
Watch, the “switch ” to a more activist judge will be this Marxist nominating himself to the unconstitutional Supreme Court. Judges are meant to be impartial.
Time for a Revolution.
Any thing the Mau Mau from Kenya does doesn’t surprise me, he has violated the trust of the American People so many
times that it is common place for the wanna be dictater to continue his masters quest for the destruction of our Nation.
Along with the dead pachyderm society call the GOP that just rolls over and surrenders after running their
trunks about how they are fighting him daily. There once was a time when we had MEN and WOMEN who would stand
up for our nation then out political scene was invaded by bottom feeding Lawyers who are out only for themselves and
how much they can steal before they are removed from office if the voters ever wake up. The political machine has
long abandoned the voters and we see that in the current election process.
yea, yea!
Hardly Mau Mau. He’s from the Muslim Luo Deng tribe.
If the GOP doesn’t wise up and stop the garbage that is going it will easy for the Democrats to win 5 seats in the Senate and maybe more,
In this case he could appoint himself and approved by the senate. God help the USA!
Impeach Obama before the election. That would tie his hands. Ross Hawkins
Judge Garland is considered a moderate, not a liberal and not a judicial activist.
Polls show that 61% of Americans think the Senate should hold hearings on his nomination. So if republicans want to follow the will of the people as they claim, they should have the hearings.
Baloney. Garland is a liberal through and through and anti second amendment. He’s just what obama wants, an anti American who wants to do away with the first and second amendments. Naive to think otherwise. If obama appointed him, he’s another Kagan or mama Latina Sotomayor.
Keep him out!
Judge Garland is considered a moderate by Left Wing DemoRATS only. Everyone else KNOWS he is a far right LibTART.
Was that from the Soros polling group?
I wouldn’t put anything past this usurper and “Prevaricator-in-Chief”…
If he does take this shortcut, at least the appointee will be better for the country than an extreme right or left leaning
justice, and we can move something forward that does reflect this divided nations.
Merrik Garland’s position on the Second Amendment makes it plainly clear what kind political activist judge he would be…
The Supreme Court and our judicial system are becoming nothing more than a tool by activists to achieve an agenda which is not supported by the general public. At some point the American people will reach the breaking point and either ignore the judicial system or clear the bench and start over. The selection of Supreme Court justices would not be such an issue if the judicial system would abandon activism and do their constitutional job. The Supreme Court has a long track record of inventing constitutional rights which are not in the Constitution and trodding on the rights that are listed in the Constitution.
Mitch McConnell is a political strategist. I figure there is much more to this story than the media is reporting. McConnell may abandon his current “no consideration” strategy at a time that he feels would be politically advantageous to Republicans.
THESE DAM REPUBLICANS BETTER START IMPEACHMENT ASAP OR ELSE THE USA WILL DIE ! WHAT IN THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH THEM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jackie-
If by “impeachment” you mean “get him out of office,” i agree; however, this should be done by simply arresting him for any number of charges, including but not limited to Fraud(which has no statute of limitations, btw) for KNOWINGLY taking the office while completely aware that non-natural-born citizens are BARRED from the office), Felony Perjury(for repeatedly violating his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution”) “personation” (which is, in essence, pretending to be someone you are not in order to gain a benefit), and finally Treason itself, for arming, training, importing, funding, giving vehicles and munitions to avowed Enemies of the United States.
“Impeachment” is reserved only for those who LEGITIMATELY hold the office; those who got there by any of the above-named methods are simple criminals, and need to be treated AS such.
To “impeach” them would be to say “Yes, you have met all lawful requirements for office according the the Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution,” which D’OweBama certainly has NOT.
Everyone is so scared of Trump, when the true menace is dismantling America from his oval office. Yet, no one does anything to stop obama. Nobody brings up his past or current treasons.
I guess those who are scared of Trump approve of the menace in the Whitehouse.
I think He had Scalia was murdered, This is so funny how this is going. He should have had an autopsy. But Obama YOU LIAR ENEMY TO AMERICA it ain’t going to work
This is possible, but it sure is sick. Liberals feel no compunction regarding morals when it comes to what they think should be shoved down the throat of the country.
If Hillary is the next President, we’ll be wishing for Judge Garland. She’ll appoint worse nominees. She is as Socialist as Bernie, but she talks a pragmatic game. And she’ll probably be allowed 2/3 appointments during her term.
Obummer don’t give a good damn about the American people and what we think or want, his greateas desire is to do as much damage to us as he possibly can and get Hil-Liar-y in office as the POTUS. If she does become POTUS we haven’t seen hell on earth til then. As i said before just read the book “THE CLINTON’S WAR ON WOMEN” by Roger Stone Co-Author and Co-Author and Historian Robert Morrow. This book explains all about how the hildabeast really feels about women and women’s rights after Bill The Rapist bites their upper lips while he is raping them and his favorite saying is “I LOVE SINNING AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS” and the way they cover up all of his rapes and their pet names such as “bitches, whores and sluts among many others. Also the way they cover up all of their evil from their time in Arkansas with the Dixie Mafia covering for them until their time as president and First Lady and all of Bill’s times with women (raped and raveged) and Hillary’s using Whitehouse Secret Service, IRS and other US Departments to cover them up by demeaning these women that Hillary is supposed to care so much about. Do we really want these Liars and This Rapist back in THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN OUR LAND?
Well then we the people need to shut down the obuma and keep the Senate and Congress in the Republican control
James-
We the People have NO idea of the power they can wield, and deliberately so, due to the mass hypnosis of teevee and gov’t control of what (and how it is) is taught in the Public Fool System.
Let the mass arrests of office-holders in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches commence! In each, you will find MANY who have violated the terms of their contract by violating their Oaths of Office, routinely exceeding the lawful bounds of their conditionally-delegated authority, the Constitution for the United States of America. Oath-breaking is felony perjury…same as it is in EVERY court in America.
“When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny.”
— Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Office-holders no longer FEAR the people, but let JUST 3 high-profile Oathbreakers(a SCOTUS judge or two, any attorney working for them, a President or VP or head of an alphabet agency like BLM, BATF, NSA), a Senator, Representative, or aide) be convicted, and i guarantee the rest will sit up and take notice…then begin to Obey the People at large, instead of the Rich people, which is the current status quo.