On Wednesday morning, people who care about other people’s rights got a jolt of good news when multiple outlets reported that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term. While Breyer has been a mostly reliable moderate liberal during his time on the bench, he’s also 83 years old, and the last time an octogenarian justice chose to ignore the danger of sticking around until they couldn’t stick around any longer, it gave the worst president in history his third Supreme Court pick. While Joe Biden’s nominee will not reshape the 6–3 makeup of the court, whoever receives the nod will certainly be much younger, and would likely sit on the bench for many years to come. That person will likely also make history as the first Black woman to be nominated to the court, if Biden keeps his campaign pledge, which the White House reportedly suggested on Wednesday he would. That is, of course, if Mitch McConnell doesn’t pull some uniquely evil bullshit out of his ass and deprive Biden of his pick.
As a reminder for anyone who has understandably avoided any mention of McConnell for the last decade, the Kentucky Republican has spent the last six years basically making shit up about when a president can and cannot nominate someone to the Supreme Court. In 2016, when Antonin Scalia died and there were a whopping 342 days left in Barack Obama’s second term, the then Senate majority leader claimed that the “American people” should be the ones to decide who got to fill the vacant seat—never mind that they already had decided, when they reelected Obama. But no, according to McConnell, there was a little-known rule—known only to him, in fact—that said a president could not nominate someone to the Supreme Court in an election year, and there was simply nothing Obama, Democrats, or poor Merrick Garland could do about it. (In reality, the Senate had never once refused to consider a nominee because it was an election year and, in fact, had previously confirmed more than a dozen nominees during a year in which an election was held.)
Fast-forward to 2020, and McConnell, again lying through his caps, claimed that what he really meant to say in 2016 was that the reason he was within his rights to block Obama’s court pick was because the executive and the Senate were made up of opposing parties. The fine print on his dazzling array of bullshit stated that if Americans elect a Senate majority from the same party as the president, that Senate is obligated to confirm that president’s nominee no matter how close to an election it is. In other words, the opposite of what he said when he was justifying blocking Obama’s pick. Which subsequently meant he could help Trump put Amy Coney Barrett on the court with less than two months until the presidential election.
Of course, this time around, McConnell is thankfully the Senate minority leader, meaning he doesn’t have the power to just do whatever the fuck he wants. Still, you’ll have to forgive people if they remain worried about what kind of stunt he might pull!
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Sure, the odds for Democrats are that Biden’s nominee goes through, but there’s also an extremely high chance that McConnell will still announce on the Senate floor an arcane rule that only he knows about, which states that regardless of who holds the majority, “lawmakers cannot and shall not confirm a Supreme Court pick the same year my cat, Mr. Whiskerson, learns to use the toilet on his own. Which happened today, just before I left for work. So, sorry to President Biden. I don’t make the rules.”
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This, too, seems like a distinct possibility
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Meanwhile, in Delusion-ville
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It’s (still) not a great day to be Matt Gaetz
And next week/month/year aren’t looking too hot either! Per the Daily Beast:
While the case against Ellicott is separate from the Justice Department investigation into Gaetz, as the Daily Beast notes, “Ellicott’s plea agreement requires him to cooperate with the government in other prosecutions, including possibly testimony before the grand jury and in court.” Which has got to be unwelcome news at Chez Gaetz, on the heels of equally not-great news that his ex-girlfriend has reportedly testified before a grand jury re: his alleged sex crimes. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any and all wrongdoing. Asked for comment, his office told the Daily Beast: “After nearly a year of false rumors, not a shred of evidence has implicated Congressman Gaetz in wrongdoing. We remain focused on our work representing Floridians.”
Fox News: Draw up the articles of impeachment against this guy NOW
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Elsewhere!
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is among the leading candidates to succeed Justice Breyer (NYT)
Fed ready to tackle inflation with interest rate increase in March, pointing to strong job growth amid pandemic (Washington Post)
Could the pandemic be stabilizing? The WHO says it might be, but “our work is not done.” (Washington Post)
Spotify pulls Neil Young’s music after his ultimatum against Joe Rogan and vaccine misinformation (Washington Post)
Meet the mild-mannered progressive who’s breaking the filibuster (Politico)
NYC Mayor Took His Paycheck in Crypto, Then Bitcoin and Ether Crashed (Bloomberg)
Picasso’s descendants to sell NFTs linked to never-before-seen ceramic work (Washington Post)
Drug Suspect Claimed Bag of Syringes Was “For Fishing,” Says Police Report (TSG)
— Inside Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Unlikely Rise and Precipitous Fall at Liberty University
— Eric Adams Pulls Crypto-Paycheck Stunt Hours Before Bitcoin Crash
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— New York Attorney General to Trump, Ivanka, and Don Jr.: Don’t F--k With Us
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— From the Archive: It Came From Wasilla
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