Maybe when Texas babies start dying, he'll care.

It's Friday, April 29, and Day 76 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell laid down his Supreme Court blockade: No meetings, no hearings, no votes on his replacement. It's also Day 46 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. What's the Senate doing today instead of considering the Supreme Court nominee?

Nothing. They had to get an early start on their week off. So what are they not doing? They're not even considering spending money to fight Zika. You know, the disease that kills babies. They're not doing it because Republicans don't think it's an emergency. Even though it kills babies.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) dismissed President Obama's $1.9 billion funding request as a "blank check" that would allow him to divert funds to agencies outside of the Zika virus efforts, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. […] Cornyn flatly rejected Obama’s $1.9 billion funding request and signaled that he was opposed to any other new funding that did not go through the regular appropriations process. If Congress passes an emergency funding bill, it would not need to be offset under current law.

Cornyn didn't just reject the idea of emergency funding, he dismissed and possibly derailed what had been a bipartisan effort between health appropriations leaders Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Patty Murray (D-WA) to get a funding measure to the floor as soon as possible. That's ground to a halt, apparently. Murray told reporters Wednesday, "I was hopeful that we could make progress. But it has been nearly a week since we had those conversations."

Republicans are pretty blasé about this disease, pointing out that the administration has already moved $589 million, mostly from an account set aside for Ebola. You know, the disease Republicans were convinced was going to kill everybody up until Election Day, 2014. The disease that a whopping four Americans came down with.

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