are senators? Susan Collins and Joe Manchin stupid, or do they just think we are?
Both self-identified centrist, pro-choice senators voted to kill Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaughtwo of the six lawyers responsible for curbing American women’s rights through the 1960s with today’s statement On Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health† They did this because they were assured at the time that both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would maintain the precedent. In fact, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh didn’t. Oops!
Both senators have come out with statements expressing their shock…shocked– that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch would do such a thing – what naughty judges! This is especially sad for the senators because they both met both judges during their respective confirmation trials, and both judges assured both senators that they would pledge three times not to undo Roe v. Wadeno backs.
Manchin released a statement saying he was “alarmed” and “deeply disappointed” that he had been lied to by both judges. Collins says she was also lied to, and that the court’s setting of a 50-year precedent was an “ill-considered move that will further divide the country” at an already fraught time. I may be an outlier here, but I believe them. Kind of.
I don’t believe they were totally blinded by the actions of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh today.
Alito’s ‘Dobbs’ Opinion Overthrowing ‘Roe’ Is Judicial Activism At Its Most Self-Delusional
Now, if Senators Collins and Manchin are telling the truth (which they aren’t, but let’s pretend they are, as a treat), it means they honestly didn’t suspect that two Federalist Society vetted judges nominated by a president who once mused during a debate that it might be time to punish women who undergo abortions would, given the chance, vote to overturn the legal precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion. It means two US senators didn’t believe that two men about to get a lifetime tenure at their dream job wouldn’t lie during the interview as a means to an end.
If Manchin and Collins were telling the truth and they really would have… no idea if this were to happen they would be idiots who should not be trusted to operate a manual stapler without eye protection let alone write laws. Now if they’re telling the truth, they’re the people who need stickers on irons that read “WARNING: DO NOT IRON CLOTHES WHILE WEARING.” Now if they are telling the truth and were so easily deceived and at the same time unable to listen to all the people who told them they were being deceived, then they are dumber than a bag of hair.
“The fox promised he wouldn’t eat any of the chickens if he got access to the hen house!” doesn’t work as an excuse if the loft is spattered with blood and feathers.
What is probably the truth is that Manchin and Collins knew exactly what they were doing to help confirm Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — they took meetings, asked questions, and pretended to be satisfied with the obvious lies they received in response in a attempt to amass what they thought was plausible denial for when? roe went inevitable – excuse my french – tits up† Collins and Manchin didn’t care… actually protecting access to abortion; they cared seem to care on protecting access to abortion.
They thought voters would be stupid enough to believe they were taking due care to protect women’s reproductive autonomy, and now they think voters are stupid enough to believe they were being fooled.
Voters can be pretty stupid in general. But we are not That stupid.
However, I believe some of Collins and Manchin’s statements today. I believe they are actually, truthfully “disappointed” and “alarmed” with the current one dobbs rule, but not because they are concerned about abortion.
I believe the Senators are disappointed and alarmed because they both now look like absolute impostors and/or liars. Rarely has a bad faith decision backfired so publicly so quickly; Kavanaugh and Gorsuch wasted no time fooling all the idiot centrists who claimed they wouldn’t be in step with the unbridled silliness of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas as soon as they stepped on the couch. Susan Collins and Joe Manchin look like complete horse butts.
Beware of ‘helpful’ FemTech in the post-roe world
I believe Collins and Manchin thought they had more time before their words were served to them piping hot. Perhaps they thought they were long gone from public life by then roe fell. Perhaps Manchin envisioned cruising through West Virginia in his Maserati, cheerful coal managers, a Beverly Hillbilly back in his native country. Maybe Collins intended to use the money she had made sell her house in Bangor (two days ago it was on the market) to buy a small pied-a-terre in the south so that she coastal grandmother aesthetic stage for a background of palm trees.
With apologies to the Teams Collins and Manchin staffers who wrote those lovely little words, it will take a lot more than a press release to unravel what they helped screw up, and will take a lot more than a statement of surprise to voters. into believing that Manchin and Collins had no idea this was going to happen.
There’s nonsense, and then there’s fucking nonsense. And this is fucking bullshit.
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