Of course the confirmation hearings process is broken. What isn't?

[Inland]

It's broken along with all the other processes of the congress, of the supposed independent agencies, of the executive bureaucracy.

The FORMS are still there of a functioning representative government, but outside the formal proceedings the majority of the participants have a strategy of lies and covering up. There wasn't an examination of Alito: he just lied and covered with complicity of the majority. The republicans put a huge amount of effort into the proposition that "you can't ask that." You can't ask about opinions on anything that matters, and being left with character and matters that happened twenty years ago, can't ask about that either lest you be mean and make someone cry.

The function of the republicans is to prevent questions in a proceeding that takes the form of questioning. As a sign of their success, they trumpeted the number of questions answered. In substance, Alito said nothing. In form, however, you had a real exercise of constitutional prerogative. Look at Biden go, he gets to talk FOREVER. And look at Alito respond, his lips move.

It's just another aspect of the congress's refusal to exercise oversight of the executive. The majority is complicit with the executive. Its purpose is to prevent oversight, not exercise it. It's to keep the democrats from asking questions. Its to stop the subpoenas, stop the hearings, be the foot soldiers of the president.

Biden's suggestion to end the exam and go straight to debate treats the symptom, not the disease. There isn't any more democracy on the floor than in the committee room, when the majority's purpose is to cover up and lie their way through a cover up and a lie by the executive. It isn't the process. It's the lack of interest in a good faith participation in any process that might end up restraining presidential prerogatives or power grabs.

I've written before on how every dictatorship maintains the form of popular representation and legal checks. Stalin and Hitler had formal bodies and constitutions left over from the days when they were meant to mean something, and had turned into applause sections.....voluntarily.

[babylonsister]

1. "...he just lied and covered with complicity of the majority" That

statement shows how much integrity this guy has-none. Pathetic!
Thanks for this post, Inland.