“Today, Senate Republicans completed the judicial coup they launched last February. For the first time in our nation’s history, a Supreme Court seat has been stolen. In doing so, they have deeply damaged the integrity of the Senate and the Supreme Court itself.
“Let’s be clear: the Republicans already detonated the nuclear option when Majority Leader McConnell announced within hours of Justice Scalia’s death that the Senate majority would refuse to consider any nominee put forward by President Obama. What we saw today was the continued fallout from that nuclear option, and it will only lead our nation further down the path of division and partisanship.
“The primary driver of the majority’s decision to steal the Supreme Court seat was to sustain the flow of dark money that is corrupting our elections. The deed is done. McConnell and his team have put a knife into the heart of our ‘We the People’ republic.”
—Senator Jeff Merkley, April 6, 2017
Is said to bow toward justice,
But here upon this day we hark
It bending toward Procrustes.
One party could not tolerate
Appointment by a black man
To the high court, so mired in hate
Refused to cut the slack, man.
Though in the middle ground all felt
No qualms with Merrick Garland,
A dastard trick to him was dealt,
To justice in all our land.
The "stolen seat," the court thus "packed"
By the extremist Gorsuch,
Thus does a travesty enact;
And all good hearts abhor such.
The day that justice died, alas,
May not be held to Donald
(Though he no credibility has),
But say it was McConnell'd.
America, the USA,
Gives up on jurisprudence,
Is what the headlines read today:
What ignorance! Impudence!
The arc of moral justice broke,
Decisions hence invalid,
As courts that wear the party cloak
Favor the rich and pallid.