Okay, I know that talking about a possible member of the Supreme Court is kinda outside the scope of what I said this blog would be about, but this is an emergency.
You may have heard by now that a lot of people are pretty freaked out about the possibility of Brett Kavenaugh being on the Supreme Court. There are lots of good reasons for this. He doesn't like to admit to being an originalist, but he is one. He freely admits to being a huge fan of Antonin Scalia. Let's be clear. No one is a fan of Scalia unless they are originalists themselves. So Kavenaugh isn't fooling anyone. (He's kinda like someone who doesn't like to call himself a Nazi, but is totally fine with calling himself a member of the alt-right. Po-ta-toh, po-tah-to, Kavenaugh.)
Originalists don't think that women have a constitutional right to an abortion. And originalists think that everyone should have the right to own a gun. So those two things make people nervous about Kavenaugh.
But the weirdest thing about him is the fact that he believes in this thing called the Unitary Executive Theory. The Unitary Executive Theory is this weird, fringe, super-freaky idea that the president should have about as much power as a king.
Normally, a president is not like a king. A king is someone who IS the law. He makes the law, and what he says goes. A president, however, at least in our form of government, is just the head of one of three branches of the federal government. Remember learning about checks and balances in fifth grade? That means that if the president does something illegal, or unconstitutional, then either Congress or the Supreme Court can tell him to knock it off. But fans of the Unitary Executive Theory think the president should have way more power than either of the other two branches. And that would make the president above the law.
So Robert Mueller is trying to figure out if Trump and his campaign cronies knowingly sought out dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians during his presidential campaign. (Spoiler alert: he probably did.) The reason this is a crime is because it breaks federal campaign finance law that says that a foreign government can't give anything of value to a U.S. presidential candidate. If Kavenaugh were on the Supreme Court, and Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation, Kavenaugh would totally be on Trump's side. That's because fans of the Unitary Executive Theory think that a president who is still in office:
1. can't be charged with a crime
2. can shut down any investigation, including one about him
3. can personally fire Mueller
4. can ignore a subpoena from a grand jury (A grand jury is a group of people who get together to decide if there is enough evidence to charge someone with a serious felony.)
5. can decide for himself if he has obstructed justice (obstructing justice means getting in the way of a criminal investigation or a trial)
6. can pardon himself (a pardon is basically a get-out-of-jail-free card)
This list sounds crazy because it is.
Okay. So what do we do? The Senate has already started the confirmation hearing, the big, long meeting where they decide whether or not to let this crazy, fringe wacko be on the Supreme Court. But the hearing isn't over.
For the love of God, call your senator and tell them not to confirm Kavenaugh. The phone number for the U.S. Capital switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Don't know who your senator is? Find out by going to https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
Think your senator is already pretty groovy, and would never vote to confirm someone like Kavenaugh? Call and say thank you. And ask them to put pressure on their friends in the Senate.
The time is now, people. For the love of democracy, please call.
Do you really want Trump to be our king?