It's only January 4th but this will be in the running for most ridiculous utterance of 2017 https://t.co/scrieGLiku
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) January 5, 2017
McConnell: "The American people simply will not tolerate" Democrats blocking Trump's SCOTUS nominee https://t.co/9b6sqFrQTM
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 4, 2017
How long Merrick Garland waited for a hearing, per @SCOTUSblog. His nomination expired today along with the old Congress. pic.twitter.com/bEIULgOliB
— Cristian ? (@cristianafarias) January 3, 2017
In a weird way you have to admire the zero fucks contempt McConnell has for anyone whose long-term memory exceeds that of a fruit fly. https://t.co/e5SIewWzhJ
— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) January 4, 2017
Nope, no we don’t.
"Why does his lip match his tie?" pic.twitter.com/Y1ZufirWsa
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 5, 2017
lollipopguild
The senator from KY is a very good example of what happens to a politician who has a very safe seat and evolves into an amoral power seeking robot. Power and moar power is all that matters to him.
Shana
Like the Ian Millhiser tweet. Good night All.
Omnes Omnibus
Burgundy.
kindness
Ride the Tiger Mitch. Just remember what happens when you do.
lamh36
Oh my goodness…Hidden Figures was so good! Octavia Spence…Janelle Monae…and Taraji Henson!!!! And i see Pharrell is out to get ANOTHER Oscar for best song as well! Wow! Run don’t walk…and see it!!
Miss Bianca
Is anyone else feeling incredible sadness and rage for Merrick Garland at thought of the insult McConnell et al. dealt him, and then his having to read this kind of bullshit from the same parties?
Kryptik
@efgoldman:
He, along with others, have discovered that politicking without shame absolutely can work, long as you ensure you accuse your enemies of the same venality that you commit behind Americans’ backs every day. Even when you do get caught, you never get punished because ‘both sides same thing’, and when they get caught, it proves how evil they are and how you are the only hope for this country.
And it works.
It fucking works. Every fucking time, it fucking works.
Victor Matheson
@Miss Bianca: One hopes that Garland, who still holds probably the most important judicial position outside the Supreme Court, remembers this miscarriage of justice for the rest of his judicial career.
Davis X. Machina
@Miss Bianca: Remember back to when Obama originally made this pick?
No True Progressive feels sadness and rage for Merrick Garland.. Instead, a True Progressive feels that we dodged a neoliberal bullet. Because for all practical purposes, Garland would just be another Scalia. Possibly even worse, because Scalia occasionally bucked the police.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Yep. And I continue to be ashamed that we on the Democratic side weren’t able to make a full-throated defense of Garland because we let a few “left-libertarian” dudebros be Very Concerned over one (1) Guantanamo decision of Garland’s.
Would a bigger push by a united public have made a difference? We’ll never know now.
ETA: (Shakes helpless fist at Davis X Machina.)
tpherald
The Dems need to implement “The Ted Cruz Rule”: 8 SCOTUS Justices in enough
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/27/politics/ted-cruz-supreme-court/
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Judge Garland remains the Chief Justice of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He is the most powerful jurist not on the US Supreme Court. Virtually anything having to do with the Federal government has to run through his appellate court before it gets to the Supremes. That court has, and will for some time now, a majority of justices appointed by Democrats – several by President Obama. I doubt that any of them will forget the treatment they received as Senator McConnell slow walked their nominations, nor how Judge Garland was treated.
Miss Bianca
@Davis X. Machina: True Progressives can kiss my round white ass. No, wait. I don’t want their lips anywhere *near* my ass. They can go suck on a sewage pipe. As long as we;re getting “both sides do it!” from, well, BOTH SIDES, we’ll never win anything.
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: My sadness and rage is too generalized to identify that particular affront, but it’s definitely in there.
khead
It’s crickets on my FB feed. Even with the left leaning folks raising a stink about daily events.
Trump, Ryan, and McConnell could choke a kitten live on FB and still get a pass right now. Not from me, of course, but you get the idea.
tpherald
Republican “truths” only exist within the framework of the Conservative media bubble: Fox News, AM Radio, Drudge, Breitbart …
If Dems would stop giving F’s about NYT or WaPo front page stories, they could play McConnell’s game, use his playbook from the past 8 years and win a few battles.
It’s a fallacy of the Dems and libs to worry about what Tom Friedman or Dan Balz might write about them instead of trying to win on the ground.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Dingdingding. You win the cigar or coconut of your choice.
Mnemosyne
@khead:
You should like Gin & Tacos on Facebook. He’s been all over this.
(Not to be confused with local commenter Gin & Tonic.)
El Caganer
Damn. I didn’t know a turtle could suffer from constipation. Learn something new every day.
goblue72
@Mnemosyne: Seriously? How far off the deep end are you? Left-libertarian “dudebros” are the reason Garland didn’t get a hearing? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you actually listen to yourself?
Why did Merrick Garland not get a hearing? Because the Republicans can been eating Democrats lunch money since Newt Gingrich crawled out of a swamp in Georgia and took out a Contract On America. Because Senate Republicans were the majority party in the Senate, they play to win, and they knew that the average voter doesn’t even know who is ON the Supreme Court, let alone who the heck Merrick Garland is – and as such, there was ZERO downside to boxing out his nomination hearing and only upside. Worst case, Clinton wins, Dems take Senate, and a Merrick Garland clone gets appointed, which is no worse than just confirming Garland.
And that’s their worst case scenario. Because the voters don’t give a shit and wouldn’t punish Republicans for it – and they’d effectively neutered Obama such that he failed at getting any traction on their stalling.
THAT’S why Garland didn’t get appointed. Republicans had the upper hand and they played it to win.
Kryptik
Don’t look now, but Trump is fucking up our foreign relations with even allies for a good few months now.
Lets not forget the effects on the families of the ambassadors too who will be upended far far earlier than they expected.
Manyakitty
@Adam L Silverman: I’m glad I found you here. It’s taken a while, but I think this evening, I finally found the core of my intense concern since the election:
Myriad other problems with him notwithstanding, this country elected someone who has declared and demonstrated his loyalty to a hostile foreign power, and he’s about to have the full force of the US military at his disposal. Is this an accurate interpretation?
Gin & Tonic
@goblue72:
Let me guess. You failed reading comprehension.
Manyakitty
@khead: Wanna be my friend over there? I keep things moving.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: I’m pretty sure I’m better-looking.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: thats good to know as I listen to Julian Epstein talk about this Holman (?) rule that may or may not allow Congress to target individual gov’t employees’ salaries. He said it’s already been declared unconstitutional, which it certainly sounds to my NAL layman’s ear
goblue72
@Gin & Tonic: There’s no other way to read this excuse making bullshit –
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@goblue72: oh, fuck off, Dwight
Shalimar
I need to work on my screenplay for the new Republican economy: Die Soon – The movie that can only afford Bruce Willis for 3 minutes of screen time.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Look, kids, the #1 apologist for the dudebro contingent showed up to defend their honor.
What a shocker.
Hey, have you figured out the relative populations of the Bay Area and Los Angeles Metro area yet?
Adam L Silverman
@Manyakitty: I honestly don’t know what to make of it and I’ve been following it and/or doing deep dives into the subject for almost a year. As someone who has been tracking Putin’s influence, desinformaziya, and kompromat operations since 2014, it is very, very worrisome.
Senior Chief Malcolm Nance certainly thinks so:
https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/816714498631467009
And
https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/816715382102827008
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep, which is what I stated in a comment earlier today. It counts as a Bill of Attainder, which is unconstitutional. Additionally, it was created to deal with issues that occurred when Federal jobs were all done by patronage, not under the apolitical civil service laws we have had for a hundred years or so.
goblue72
@Kryptik: Trump is a dick. He surrounds himself with dicks. Bannon, Conway, Spicer, Pence, and most of his Cabinet picks. Its dicks all the way down.
This is how the roll. This is how those dicks “send a message” to “everybody” that they mean business about doing a 180 on foreign policy and are going to “get tough” with whomever they decide to “get tough” with.
khead
@Mnemosyne:
Ed is part of my regular reading. BJ, G&T, Roy Edroso, jezebel/deadspin, Kevin Drum, Atrios, Digby and LG&M. Plus a bunch of sports pages, local news and animal sites. This is the only place where I comment though.
I’m guessing my browser history suggests I’m a middle aged crazy cat lady.
goblue72
@Mnemosyne: Have you figured out that there are more voters outside LA Metro such that most voters were likely unaware of Sanchez rep?
Jesus. Clue. Find one.
Manyakitty
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you. “Very, very worriesome” sums it up. But now what? How long do we wait?
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
And yet Sanchez lost by one of the largest margins in state history. Almost like a majority of voters knew she was bad news.
Let’s see, when a majority of voters lives in the region where Sanchez is from, and Sanchez loses badly, that means that … nobody knew about her bad rep and that losing margin is a total coincidence! Wow, glad you were able to clear that up for us.
Adam L Silverman
@Manyakitty: I cannot answer that question. Partially because I’m not sure what “wait” is signifying.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Here’s a fun map of California. Huh, turns out there actually are more people in the southern half of the state. Who’d’a thunk it?
rikyrah
8 years of receipts,muthaphucka.
And nobody is letting go of any of them.????
rikyrah
@lamh36:
I knew that you would love it???
patroclus
I think it would have been a good idea if Senator Sanders had made the Garland nomination a huge issue instead of building his campaign on the key issues of DWS and the timing of the Democratic debates together with the Goldman Sachs speeches. The Supreme Court seems to me to be a bigger issue than campaign contributions from individuals who work for banks or voting against gun regulation. Unfortunately, his idea of salient issues that affect the country differs from mine.
Ella in New Mexico
@Adam L Silverman: thank you for the sane redirect. I needed that. ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Didn’t he say Obama should withdraw the nomination if he (Bernie!) won the nomination, effectively agreeing with McConnell?
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
You must have missed today’s memo. It’s out of bounds for us to criticize the way that St. Sanders the Incorruptible ran his campaign because, really, it wasn’t even as nasty as a city council race, so we need to just pretend that there were no issues with his messaging and the sole blame for any errors rests solely with Hillary.
Please try to review each day’s memos so you have the approved talking points. Thank you.
(And in case it somehow wasn’t 100 percent obvious — //)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: sounds like I missed a fun thread
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
There’s been another flare-up. Go read another thread and we’ll let you know when it’s safe.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
And didn’t she endorse Issa and some other democrats? I had heard she was a “corporate democrat” too. I read somewhere that she was a DLC type, was that wrong?
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It was a dull and rainy day at work. I had too much time on my hands.
patroclus
@efgoldman: It makes a difference because I think that our candidates – especially those with large crowds and lots of energy from supporters – should actually focus on important issues rather than faux issues. We need to learn the lesson of the opponents to Berlusconi – when they finally beat him, it was because they focused on real issues that actually affect people’s lives; not meaningless gibberish. Both the Left and the center-left need to learn this lesson.
Manyakitty
@Adam L Silverman: Apologies. He skates past unforgivable revelations and behavior. Can anyone or anything stop him before he blows up the world? I know that’s hyperbolic, but it seems like that’s where he’s ultimately headed.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Not really a DLC type since that type is dead (especially in CA), but definitely wishy-washy and trying a bit too hard to be “bidness friendly,” as the late great Molly Ivins used to say.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It wasn’t just the one thread, it was sprinkled over several. Good times.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
To be serious for a moment, there is a major divide between liberals and left-libertarians about what our “real issues” are. Liberals think it’s civil rights, including access to healthcare. Left-libertarians think it’s civil liberties and what they’re pleased to call “economic issues,” i.e. fighting corporatism. We’re currently engaged in a battle over which of these issues should take precedence, and Trump’s bad actions in all of these areas make it even harder to focus.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: To me, civil rights and civil liberties are two sides of the same coin.
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: The USSC covers all of those issues – it should have been a united Democratic effort by all candidates – especially including sitting Senators, who were most directly involved. Instead, the whole objection to the Garland filibuster was only concentrated in a few states and a few campaigns and the national effort petered out last Spring. Clinton at least mentioned it a few times; albeit not as one of her key issues. Here in Illinois, Duckworth made it a big issue and Kirk was so afraid of it that he publically and pointedly backed off. Not so much by Sanders or many many others. The only time Sanders even addressed the USSC was regarding Citizen’s United, and while I agree with him, the Garland filibuster, in my view, was a much bigger and salient issue.
Adam L Silverman
@Ella in New Mexico: You’re welcome. You can thank me by having the steak tips in green chile at El Paragua’s in Espanol. Since I’ve not been back to NM since 2009 and I miss the cuisine. And the hiking. And our place up in the mountains.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
They should be two sides of the same coin, and that’s the most useful way for them to exist, but there are way too many libertarians and libertarian-leaners out there who think their civil liberties should override other people’s civil rights, especially if those other people don’t look like them. It’s the whole Ron Paul my civil liberties should allow me to discriminate against black people thing.
If they are going to force a choice on me, I choose civil rights, but I think we agree that nobody should be forcing a choice in the first place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@patroclus: the first election I got really engaged in was Bush-Clinton ’92, when the USSC was such a huge issue. Ever since, every four years, I’m astounded all over again at how little attention it gets from the left, broadly speaking. Maybe the next two years will make it big enough to play a role in 2018, which is a tough map
Adam L Silverman
@Manyakitty: Technically? Yes. Congress has several tools including the ultimate one of impeachment. The civil service has the ability to slow walk stuff. The IC has the ability to push back through selective leaking, which is always ugly. And both citizens and issue advocacy groups have the ability to push back through the Federal courts and by pressuring their Representatives and Senators. Will any of that happen and, if it should, which things will work, I do not know.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I get in fights here sometimes because I don’t acknowledge the difference. To me, any diminishing of the 4th Amendment affects everyone (for example).
Edited.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
AFAIK, the 4th Amendment doesn’t prevent me from refusing to rent an apartment to a black couple, or from firing an employee on the basis of race. People who don’t have a job or a place to live might find that a more urgent need than protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Note that I’m not saying it’s a less important need, but it would be a less urgent one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I am sorry that I did not name every amendment that matters. I am sure that the POC who get stopped and patted down share your lack of concern about the Fourth.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Again: urgent vs important. When you don’t have a job or a place to live because of discrimination, it’s cold comfort to know that the cops have to properly search you when they arrest you for sleeping in a doorway.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: You again are drawing a line between the two. They are part and parcel of the same thing.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
They should be part and parcel of the same thing. Libertarians — including left-libertarians — argue that they are not part and parcel of the same thing and we need to focus on Guantanamo to the exclusion of women’s and minority rights.
Did you agree with the left-libertarians that we needed to oppose Merrick Garland’s appointment to the USSC because of his Guantanamo decision? If so, that is by definition letting civil liberties take precedence over civil rights because it ignores Garland’s record on race, labor, and abortion rights. You can’t say that they’re two sides of the same coin but one side should automatically outweigh the other when there’s a conflict.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Do not try to connect me with the Left-Libertarians.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
But that’s the crux of the current discussion. If a Supreme Court candidate is being considered, and he has one problematic civil liberties decision (the Guantanamo decision) vs a career full of solid civil rights decisions, should liberals decide not to support him because that one Guantanamo decision automatically outweighs the rest of his support for civil rights?
Obviously, I say that’s ridiculous, and I said it was ridiculous at the time. Unfortunately, the left-libertarians won that round and liberals basically dropped the whole thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: His decision on Gitmo was bound by previous Supreme Court decisions. Walk away. I had no problem with Garland. Just walk away from this fight. Please.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, suit yourself. I was agreeing with Patroclus that the Garland nomination should have been a much bigger deal throughout this entire election cycle and trying to figure out why a big chunk of the left was opposed to him based on that one decision.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Turn in your White Male card! Or just let the (not so) New Alt-Left bhoyos explain to you that ‘civil rights’ is special interest minority cliques (women, people of color) distracting “us” from the truly important eternal issues of ‘civil liberties’. Which means, of course, the rights of White Males to do whateverthefuck they want, when it comes to hiring, socializing, consuming their intoxicants of choice, and ‘controlling their own property’ (dumping toxic wastes, sexual harassment, failing to pay property taxes / child support / licensing fees, hazardous driving, or sometimes beating on their wives / kids / least powerful employees ‘to keep them in line’).
Ken_L
McConnell is exactly correct. The American people might have been prepared to forgive the Senate once for this kind of behavior, but they won’t stand for it again. Same with shutting down the government, shouting “You lie” during the state of the union speech and so on. The American people will forgive one Congressional misdemeanor, but at least one GOP term of office must pass before they’ll forgive another.
Gretchen
@Kryptik: NYC has to pay $1 million a day to protect Trump’s wife and son so dear little Barron doesn’t have to change schools mid-year. But the ambassordors to Germany and Belgium have to rip their kids out of their last year of high school in the middle of the year, and try and find some US high school that will accept them for their last semester, are not worthy of an extension so their families won’t be disrupted.
Ian
@goblue72:
Yes the republicans are quite nefarious. Mayhaps you consider that next time we have a dem nominee you don’t quite like but is still way better than the rethug candidate.
Ian
@Mnemosyne:
When all the democratic senators were on record for Garland it seems silly to argue the “left” won anything. It was the right that stopped him, not any purity pony trolls.
Rico
McConnell has the mouth (and character) of a man who was weaned too soon from his momma…at about 5.
Kansi
Is that the only expression Mike Pence has?
Debbie1
Shorter Ian Millhiser: “He’s a heck of a guy, that Mitch McConnell.”
Yeah, screw what it does to our democracy.
Debbie1
@Kryptik: Am I crazy, or does an elected (but not inaugurated) official NOT get to give orders before they take office. For one thing, the incoming admin don’t know what operations the administration is working on because they’re not yet in power. Secondly, if anything goes wrong w/ their haphazard orders, it’s the current admin. who would be held responsible & who would have to correct the situation. Is this guy nuts?! (Asking for a friend).