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I was promised a recession.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Friday Evening Open Thread: #MoscowMitch, Chelonian Monster

Friday Evening Open Thread: #MoscowMitch, Chelonian Monster

by Anne Laurie|  April 8, 20226:45 pm| 37 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, GOP Death Cult, Open Threads

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The best part of this exchange is that @LeaderMcConnell seems to be genuinely befuddled that one might expect him to have a moral red line. He literally can't come up with anything. Acts as if that's a gotcha question. Because for him it is, since he has none. https://t.co/H2yBAuxd6u

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) April 7, 2022

Morals? Ethics? McConnell is surprised that such words are actually still in use, since he discarded them at least a generation ago.

Even Chris ‘Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza is somewhat taken aback — “Mitch McConnell just moved the goalposts – again – on Supreme Court nominees”:

Asked during an appearance on Fox News Thursday night whether he would allow a Supreme Court nomination to go through if a vacancy opened up and Republicans were in the Senate majority next year, McConnell said this:

“I’m not gonna announce what our agenda might be on appointments before we even become the majority. I hope we’re in a position to make a decision.” …

Which, wow.

To be clear, what McConnell is saying is that he won’t pledge to consider a nominee to fill a Supreme Court opening in the final two years of President Joe Biden’s term. Which is a step beyond even where McConnell had previously drawn his line on high court nominations…

Make no mistake: McConnell, in refusing to say whether he would hold hearings for any potential Supreme Court nominee in 2023 – which is not an election year – is seeking to, again, move the goalposts of how and when the Senate will confirm justices.

If McConnell refuses to take up a nominee if an opening on the court arises, the message is simple: A president can ONLY hope their Supreme Court nominee receives a confirmation hearing and vote if and only if their party controls the Senate. Which is a massive break from past precedent…

“I choose not to answer the question,” McConnell told Axios when pressed on whether he would hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee if Republicans held the majority in the Senate in 2023.

That answer – or lack thereof – tells you everything you need to know.

The only take away from Mitch McConnell has always been “I have the power and I’ll do as I want.” All the rest of this is window dressing. He has never changed and never will. He’s in it for the power. Period. End of sentence. https://t.co/vgb4HSRbbl

— Monkey??? (@Monkey26697239) April 8, 2022

i mean, the british and australian political press are awful in their own unique ways, but they seem to enjoy getting vicious with politicians much more than ours do

— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) April 7, 2022

Palate cleanser:

Proof that over 81 million Americans’ votes mattered. pic.twitter.com/SSHlOJeFu0

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) April 7, 2022

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Reader Interactions

37Comments

  1. 1.

    Ken

    April 8, 2022 at 6:53 pm

    I’m reminded of a short story (title and author sadly forgotten) where a man sells his soul to the Devil, who collects immediately; and the only change is that the fellow is no longer able to distinguish right and wrong, or good and evil.

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    April 8, 2022 at 6:58 pm

    To be blunt, refusing even to talk about whether he would hold a vote is an admission he wouldn’t hold a vote.  He just doesn’t want it to be a Democratic talking point for the upcoming election.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 8, 2022 at 6:59 pm

    Mitch McConnell makes replicants of us all; it’s impossible to pass a Voight-Kampff test when he’s the one on his back baking in the hot sun.

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    April 8, 2022 at 7:00 pm

    @Ken:

    Inability to tell good from evil would be an improvement for McConnell, who currently aims unerringly for evil.

  5. 5.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 7:02 pm

    Right now McConnell is thinking of one thing and one thing only: winning a Republican Senate majority in the midterms. Everything he says and doesn’t say is in furtherance of that goal.

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 7:06 pm

    In the year of the Webb Telescope we may also get the first astro camera placed at the moon’s south pole. This sounds like micro budget effort compared to Webb, but also a fascinating conjunction of various technical resources to get it done.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 8, 2022 at 7:07 pm

    a thing that american journotainment professionals could learn from the brits and the aussies is a zeal for getting in killshot questions

    But that would impede their precious access.  So you’re not going to get Villager vermin to killshot anything, unless it’s about Hunter Biden.​ Because furtherance of GQp narratives are one of their prime aims.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 7:09 pm

    C’mon Canada, reel in your rich assholes, we already have too many.

    April 8, 2022 at 6:55 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    A Canadian steel industry billionaire illegally helped steer $1.75 million in donations to a pro-Trump super PAC and has agreed to pay one of the largest fines ever levied by the Federal Election Commission to settle the case,” the New York Times reports.

  9. 9.

    Old School

    April 8, 2022 at 7:10 pm

    Well, where was McConnell supposed to draw the line?

    McConnell has already said leading an insurrection wasn’t sufficient.

    Insulting his wife? He can’t let Ted Cruz beat him.

    Shooting a man? Trump ruled that line out himself.

    Raping someone? Barging in on undressed minors? Already pass those.

  10. 10.

    dr. bloor

    April 8, 2022 at 7:10 pm

    It’s not easy to be so corrupt that even the Beltway media notices, but here we are.

  11. 11.

    Van Buren

    April 8, 2022 at 7:10 pm

    He knows the media will bothsides this breaking of norms somehow.
    We really are a shithole first world country at this point. The national government is mostly dysfunctional.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 8, 2022 at 7:11 pm

    @trollhattan: Unless the fine turns the billionaire into a thousandaire, it’s not going to do anything to address the problem with that individual.  Of course, in the broader sense, eliminating our legalized bribery system has to happen, but you’ll get strong opposition from teevee interests (at national and local levels) who can charge exorbitant rates for campaign ads.

  13. 13.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 7:16 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You’re right, it’s sofa change for those guys, plus a source of “attaboys” at their cabal meetings. Ban him from entering the US for, say, five years and see how he likes it.

  14. 14.

    delk

    April 8, 2022 at 7:19 pm

    I think Mitch should be more worried about the rest of his body catching up with his corpse hands.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    April 8, 2022 at 7:20 pm

    @Geminid:

    Is it a sure thing he would be elected the Majority Leader?

  16. 16.

    Kelly

    April 8, 2022 at 7:26 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: John Rodgers says a fine is a price.

  17. 17.

    Wag

    April 8, 2022 at 7:30 pm

    @debbie:   Possibly not, but any other candidate (Cruz? Hawley?) wouldn’t allow a vote on an SC nominee either

  18. 18.

    debbie

    April 8, 2022 at 7:36 pm

    @Wag:

    Still, I’d love to see his humiliation.

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 8, 2022 at 7:39 pm

    Dear media,

    This turtle-faced, fascist motherfucker STOLE A SUPREME COURT NOMINATION IN 2016 (and a Supreme Court seat)!  Or did you fuckers forget about that because “But her emails!/Is she likeable?/She’s over-prepared/Trump’s bullshit gets eyeballs/bunch of other horseshit”?

    Sincerely fuck you,

    Actual Democrats

  20. 20.

    jeffreyw

    April 8, 2022 at 7:42 pm

    The devil told him he would grant his fondest desire, but in exchange he would have to surrender his soul.

    “Yeah?  What’s the catch?”

  21. 21.

    prostratedragon

    April 8, 2022 at 7:49 pm

    You never can find a portable hole when you need  one.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 7:50 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Stole two in my book: Gorsuch and Coathanger, using Rule 1 and 1/Rule 1.

  23. 23.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    April 8, 2022 at 7:51 pm

    This was first published in the October 25, 2018 issue of the New York Review of Books and it’s even more true today:

    If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more.

    h/t https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy

     

  24. 24.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 8, 2022 at 7:54 pm

    @trollhattan: You got a point there.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 7:55 pm

    @debbie: If the Republicans win I think his caucus will credit McConnell and reward him with the Majority Leader job. There are a few candidates pledging to support someone else for leader, but that won’t bind anyone else if they win.

    I notice that when Trump agitates for a new leader, Republican Senators ignore him. I’m not sure if anyone else thinks they could do better, or even wants to try. I think you have to give up your committee spots to become leader.

  26. 26.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 8, 2022 at 7:56 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: ​

    If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell.

    I hope they at least gave a footnote to Newt Gingrich.

  27. 27.

    germy

    April 8, 2022 at 7:57 pm

    Thelma contemplating the infinite possibilities of the future / thelma embracing the difficult realities of the present pic.twitter.com/v31iRwvC3O

    — lauren (@NotABigJerk) April 8, 2022

  28. 28.

    Heidi Mom

    April 8, 2022 at 8:05 pm

    Lovely photo.  Doug Emhoff must be thinking that while his former life as an entertainment lawyer had its perks, it was nothing like this.

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 8, 2022 at 8:13 pm

    Slippery!

    Sir, you’ve been at the buffet for 5 hours…it’s time to go. ???? pic.twitter.com/sfOFYFkwrQ— Fred Schultz (@FredSchultz35) April 8, 2022

  30. 30.

    ...now I try to be amused

    April 8, 2022 at 8:13 pm

    McConnell had a chance to back up his 7 January talk and bar Trump from running for office again. All he had to do was vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment and direct his caucus to do the same. I wish Swan had pressed him about that.

  31. 31.

    gene108

    April 8, 2022 at 8:25 pm

    I wish the journalist would’ve asked Mitch about is whether lower court nominees will be confirmed, if Republicans retake the Senate or is it a foregone conclusion that Republicans will block lower court nominees and it’s therefore no longer controversial, but just part of the political conventional wisdom.

  32. 32.

    Joe Falco

    April 8, 2022 at 8:35 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I hope they at least gave a footnote to Newt Gingrich

    How about “the hearse driver of American democracy”?

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    April 8, 2022 at 8:38 pm

    @Roger Moore:To be blunt, refusing even to talk about whether he would hold a vote is an admission he wouldn’t hold a vote.  He just doesn’t want it to be a Democratic talking point for the upcoming election.

    100%, as the kids say.  Spot-on.

    I wish some reporter would ask him, “Would it be okay if a Democratic-controlled Senate refused to even give a Republican president’s SCOTUS nominee a hearing?”  Either answer would pull the curtain back, once and for all.

  34. 34.

    dexwood

    April 8, 2022 at 9:24 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Step away from the bong. Pass it to me.

  35. 35.

    Salty Sam

    April 8, 2022 at 10:13 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    The devil told him he would grant his fondest desire, but in exchange he would have to surrender his soul.

    “Yeah?  What’s the catch?”

    “…I wasn’t doing much with it anyway.”

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    April 8, 2022 at 10:45 pm

    mitch looks to me to be somewhere in the middle of the last staircase of life. I think he’s going to do everything he can to go out the miserable fuck he’s been most of his life and wants to make as many others miserable as possible one last time. IOW he wants his legacy to be, the worlds prick. He certainly isn’t the only one but he sure seems to be trying awfully hard to win the trophy. Maybe he’s pissed that vova has shown him up as worlds biggest prick.

  37. 37.

    Just One More Canuck

    April 9, 2022 at 11:49 am

    @jeffreyw: it’s not like he was ever going to use it

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