[Kätzchen]

I just want to give a huge shout out to Sen. Jeff Merkley-D, for putting in an valiant effort to stop the nomination of the person nominated as an Supreme Court Justice (Neil Gorsuch). Merkley gave a speech on the Senate floor that lasted over 15 hours. That is massive dedication, if you ask me. I read about it today in the weekly edition of Willamette Weekly, the April 12th, 2017 edition. The following is excepted news coverage about Merkley's speech on page 7:

Hour 1:
" The majority team in this chamber decided to steal a Supreme Court seat."

Hour 2:
"This is a crime against our Constitution, and the responsibities of this body."

Hour 3:
"If President T***p worked to conspire with the Russians or his team conspired with the Russians at his direction or knowledge, that is traitorous conduct. And we shouldn't be considering on this floor a nominee under that set of circumstances."

Hour 4:
"The he Koch brothers are in charge. They paid for third-party ads that put your election in the victory column."

Hour 5:
"Just pause for a moment and ask yourself, would you feel comfortable if the parties were reversed, if this were a Democratic Party stealing a Supreme Court seat from an Republican president? Would you? I ask, would you?"

Hour 6:
"The constitution didn't say money is speech. Citizens United is the opposite. It says that those who sit on the board of bazzillion-dollar corporations get a voice a bazzillion times larger than the ordinary citizen. It is damaging our nation."

Hour 7:
"We should not go back in time to a world in which the copper Barron's ruled Montana, nor back to a time when railroads and the oil companies called all the shots."

Hour 8:
"You know, the more I read his opinions, the more I think Neil Gorsuch should run for office. He wants to change the law in case after case after case."

Hour 9:
"There is a researcher from Oregon State University, Professor Dixon, who has made studying coral reef's his life's work. He said, "These reef's ate my babies, and my babies are dying"."

Hour 10:
"The very survival of the court as an independent body will be at stake --is at stake right now. That's why I'm here on the floor at 4:20 in the morning. Because so much is at stake in terms of the legitimacy of the court."

(Hours 11-15 omitted for sake of brevity)

Hour 16:
"Finally, this is an extreme nominee from the far right who doesn't believe in the fundamental vision of 'We The People' and makes decision after decision through tortured, twisted, contrived arguments for the powerful over the people, and that is unacceptable. "

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Merkley put up a hell of a good fight.
I wish we had more fighters like him around.