OPINION

There is ONLY one reason for a United States Senator to not get a COVID test, especially when the disease has been running rampant through his party. That reason is quite obvious that it’s likely to be positive, or at least “likely enough” to be positive that taking the test means perhaps having to answer the question, and then being in a position where one has a choice: Lie, and face possible criminal charges, versus tell the truth and lose the possible chance of getting a nominee on the SCOTUS in time to rid the United States of that awful healthcare plan that has saved millions of lives known as Obamacare.

We aren’t sure how many of you know that Lindsey Graham confoundingly will not take a COVID test – at least not “an official one” publicly. Lindsey Graham is, of course, head of the Judiciary Committee, the man who will be in charge of handling the hearings on Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of the most transparently extra-crispy conservatives to come this way in a long long time. The way things look, if the election were held today, not only would Donald Trump likely get his ass-kicked so badly the election would be extremely difficult to steal, but Lindsey Graham could easily lose his seat in the senate, too – him along with 4-5 others, meaning that a Democratic majority would be coming into office, with a Democratic president, in just a couple of months.

That means if the proceedings had to wait until after the election, there could be some “optics” issues.

If the Republicans pushed through a SCOTUS nominee with a lame-duck president that just got buried in a presidential election, with a senate in which they just lost their majority, with a committee chairman on his way out the door in two months – and still voted to seat Amy Coney Barett (and you KNOW they would), then it seems reasonable that the country would be just fine with Joe Biden naming Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Lawrence Tribe, Hunter Biden, Kamala Harris (to serve dual roles), and Rachel Maddow (there’s no rule a SCOTUS needs a law degree), as all new members of the SCOTUS to sit for life, or – as long as they’d like.

It is one thing to have hearings with witnesses by computer and screens, but it’s quite another to lead those hearings and take votes. There is no means to vote unless on the floor or in committee, (of which we know). Thus, unless Lindsey is coughing every three seconds, so short of breath he’s blue in the face, and so feverish that he’s got an IV hooked up to him, he will be at the hearing with Judge Barrett.

Guess who sits beside Lindsey Graham at these hearings? The minority leader, 87-year-old Diane Feinstein. Unless Lindsey was wearing a “hot zone hazmat suit,” the type with oxygen tanks, helmets, and breathers, it means that Lindsey, even with a mask, is literally willing to kill to get this woman on the Supreme Court. Without Lindsey’s vote on the majority committee, he would likely not get a vote until after the election. (We don’t want to take too many risks in talking about Senate rules because there have been people IN the Senate for 20 years that don’t fully understand the Senate rules).

What it says to us, from the view outside the halls of power in Senate committee rooms, is that Lindsey is willing to endanger the health of people sitting around him, six feet away or not, ten feet away or not, there are no guarantees. All to get that vote, because they feel like this is their last gasp anyway, in more ways than one.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak