L E T T E R F R OM T HE E D I T OR
Ginsburg’s Successor Should
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
“I want you to use
my words against
me. If there’s a
Republican president
in 2016 and a vacancy occurs
in the last year of the fi rst term,
you can say Lindsey Graham said
let’s let the next president, whoever
it might be, make that nomination.”
Graham, the South Carolina
Republican who himself is up
for reelection in November, made
these remarks in March 2016, the
day that President Barack Obama
nominated Judge Merrick Garland,
who sits on the federal Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit, to replace the late
Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly
the month before.
Graham was voicing support for
the decision that Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
had already announced —
that Garland would get no Senate
vote or even Judiciary Committee
consideration because Obama was
in his fi nal year as president and
the voters nearly eight months later
Be Named in January
should decide the president who
names Scalia’s replacement.
Now, in the wake of Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s death, Graham,
who chairs the Judiciary Committee,
has reversed course, pledging
to move — “without delay” —
a nominee Trump is expected to
name by week’s end to allow for a
vote prior to November 3.
So we’re here to use Graham’s
words against him.
Graham and McConnell’s vow
to confi rm Trump’s pick is nothing
short of a hypocritical and naked
power grab. Four years ago, McConnell
stressed that an election year
vote on a Supreme Court nominee
was inappropriate. Now, he has
qualifi ed that condition — approving
a nominee is inappropriate
only when the president and the
Senate majority are from different
parties. Voters, he contends,
gave Republicans a majority going
into 2016 to block an Obama appointee,
but gave them a majority
again going into 2020 to approve a
Trump nominee.
McConnell is making up the
rules as he goes along — and is doing
damage to Senate institutional
norms along the way.
In polls over this past weekend,
more than 60 percent of Americans
— including about half of all
Republicans — said the next president,
either Trump or Democrat
Joe Biden, should choose Ginsburg’s
success. With Biden showing
a consistent polling advantage
over Trump, Republicans fear they
will lose the chance to name another
Supreme Court justice — this
after robbing Obama of his right to
name one four years ago.
There are 53 Senate Republicans.
Susan Collins of Maine, who
faces a tough reelection vote in
November, and Lisa Murkowski of
Alaska have announced they oppose
any vote on a Trump nominee
prior to November 3. Iowa’s Chuck
Grassley, who was chair of the Judiciary
Committee in 2016 when
Garland was denied a hearing,
said in July regarding the prospect
that Ginsburg’s seat might become
vacant, “If I were chairman of the
committee and this vacancy occurred,
I would not have a hearing
on it because that’s what I promised
the people in 2016.”
Grassley has now gone back on
his word, and other key Republicans
have voiced their support for
moving forward — including Colorado’s
Cory Gardner, who is in a
tough reelection right, and Utah’s
Mitt Romney, who earlier this year
voted to remove Trump from offi ce.
McConnell is convident he now has
the votes to win.
This should not happen.
Voters must put particular pressure
on Republican senators who
themselves face the voters on November
3: including Gardner, Martha
McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis
of North Carolina, Steve Daines of
Montana, Jodi Ernst of Iowa, and
Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
Trump’s presidency has time
and again broken down norms
vital to the institutional stability
that has held the republic together
for more than two centuries. The
Senate Republicans have backed
him consistently with their votes
and looked the other way when
he’s taken outrageous executive
action.
This time, at least four Republican
senators need to be willing to
stand up to this president and say,
“Enough is enough.”
P E R S P E C T I V E : S p o r t s & H u m a n R i g h t s
Strip Qatar’s Homophobic Regime
of 2022 World Cup Now
BY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
There is no shortage of
compelling reasons to
relocate the 2022 FIFA
World Cup from the
small Gulf country of Qatar to another
host nation.
The frequently cited arguments
range from Qatar bribing members
of the International Federation of
Association Football’s executive
committee to secure the prestigious
competition, according to
sources including the US Justice
Department, to that nation’s oppressive
heat that creates impossible
playing conditions to the lack
of control over COVID-19 in the
Gulf state.
The most pressing reason to pull
the plug on the soccer World Cup
in Qatar, however, is the Islamic
regime’s lethal homophobic law
targeting gay and lesbian sexual
activity. Qatar’s statute also states
that people can be incarcerated
for “leading, instigating, or seducing
a male in any way to commit
sodomy.” It is long overdue for elite
sports associations to cease rewarding
nations that criminalize
homosexuality.
After all, the world of sports,
including in the Olympic Charter,
has enshrined human rights as an
animating principle for athletes.
But the head of the 2022 World
Cup bid team, Hassan al-Thawadi,
has set, as a condition of attending
the soccer championship, the requirement
that there be no public
displays of same-sex affection, the
BBC reported in 2013. He defended
his regime’s anti-gay laws in response
to a gay man who asked if
he would be welcome in Qatar.
Then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter,
addressing the selection of Qatar
in comments in 2010, went as
far as to say that gays should “refrain
from sexual activity” if they
go to Qatar, because homosexuality
is illegal in the Gulf country. He
later issued an apology.
“It was not my intention and
never will be my intention to go
into any discrimination,” he said.
But Blatter set the tone and the
damage was done.
Blatter was subsequently ejected
from offi ce, facing criminal
➤ QATAR WORLD CUP, continued on p.18
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