One of the more tiresome tunes in the mournful Beltway choir’s songbook is the one in which the refrain goes, “Why won’t the Republicans do something about this?” As lyricists, the singers in the mournful Beltway choir aren’t exactly the Gershwins, but what can you do? The problem with that lyric is not the meter, but the message. It asks a question. The Republicans aren’t doing anything about it because they still have work to do, and brazen hypocrisy to display. From, with profound apologies, The Weekly Standard:

Confirming judicial nominees has been elevated to a top priority in the Senate. “I decide the priority,” McConnell said in an interview. “Priority between an assistant secretary of State and a conservative court judge—it’s not a hard choice to make.” And when nominees “come out of committee, I guarantee they will be dealt with,” McConnell said. “Regardless of what tactics are used by Democrats, the judges are going to be confirmed.” No longer will “blue slips” be allowed to deny a nominee a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and vote on confirmation. In the past, senators have sometimes barred a nominee from their state by refusing to return their slip to the committee, thus preventing a hearing and confirmation.

Yes, the man who singlehandedly jacked a Supreme Court seat by demolishing longstanding political norms is now prepared to throw them out the window formally and entirely if it will get him a radically conservative federal judiciary for the next two decades. It’s already got him Neil Gorsuch for the next 20 years at least, even though it’s taken Gorsuch less than a year to start being ripped anonymously by some of his colleagues for being an arrogant twerp. Scalia, at least, could be funny.

McConnell and his supporters among the country’s ownership classes don’t care if the president* turns up naked one day on the Truman balcony with his body painted blue. They can still get what they want while the madness unfolds. Nothing matters until they have re-established Gilded Age economics married to Jim Crow social policy. Chuck Schumer and the Democrats should use every available parliamentary trick to clog up this nonsense. It’s a wonder that Merrick Garland isn’t on his third bourbon before his eggs are done every morning.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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