Elephants and Jackasses...

McConnell just openly acknowledges that if the Republicans take the Senate back in 2022, they'll block any potential SCOTUS nominees by Biden. This is what happens when you don't punish bad faith politicking: they drop the fig leaf and adopt it as an open strategy. Given the completely skewed makeup of the Senate, the minority now has a near-permanent veto on the entire federal judiciary that the majority often does not have. The Senate is going to kill this country.

 

Last I checked there weren't any open seats to the SCOTUS. So, to be fair, it's kind of like McConnell asking what smile he wears to the ceremony where they flay children and roast them over a spit: no matter what his answer, not a great look, but still purely hypothetical.

McConnell as majority leader is a one-trick pony: obstruct. Not that Lindsey Graham or the next idiot in charge would have any more creative strategies. I'm betting that 2022 isn't as kind to them as they think, especially since a vocal minority of the GOP keeps telling voters the election was stolen. The Republican primaries I've seen thus far are doubling down on Trump-boot-licker nonsense, and that might be really problematic between now and November of next year. Not to mention, the question of fund raising when things like Jan 6 remain...unsettled.

It seems the biggest problem with the Senate is Joe Manchin at the moment, because they might not ever have a super-majority, but they are squandering the majority they have. The difference between the Democrats I see and the Democrats that seem to exist soley in the imagination of GOP talking heads is staggering. I genuniely don't think they could "ruin the country", because they can't even do simple shit like "prosecute the guilty" or "fix a Goddamned single fucking thing."

 

There's a current debate over whether Breyer should step down now while Biden can get a vote on his replacement. Breyer is resisting this because of some nonsense belief that Republicans will do the right thing if he steps down in '23 or '24. That's why it's an issue. Thomas and Alito have also considered retirement, although they'll both try to wait out the Biden Admin (and Alito at minimum will certainly succeed).

 

On the bright side, people like Graham and McConnell fall into specific tribe known as People Who Will Be Dead Soon.

 

FFS, did he learn nothing from the Ginsburg debacle?

 

Ginnie Thomas would never allow her man to retire. All that work she put into 1/6 went to waste, she still needs his status.

 

Literally nobody would notice if Thomas retired. He’s the absolutely laziest sycophant and worst SC justice in the history of the United States. And he’s been lost, no longer being able to constantly plunge his tongue into Scalia’s asshole.

 

Even if all that is true, he is still a Supreme Court Justice occupying one out of only nine seats. Small man, large shadow.

 

Now if only they'd expand the court to better reflect the 2x/3x increase in population since the last time, that'd be swell.

 

They should expand it to 13; one representative for each of the lower federal courts. That was the original makeup and intention of the court.

 

I agree with this and I'd go a step further. Each district that a lower federal court represents should have a Supreme Court judge from that district.

 

Personally, I think they should expand it to the point where one or 2 seats aren’t that much of a difference. Make it 21 seats for all I care. Everything shouldn’t hang in the balance of one or two octogenarians who hold on to the naive concept of bipartisanship.

This wouldn’t even be an issue if McConnell didn’t stake everything he holds dear on the exercise of raw political power.

 

I struggle with the notion that the answer to a stranglehold in government is more government. I'm also leery of any lifetime government appointee. So, maybe the solution is "fine, keep it at the creepiest 9 lawyers we can find", but make their terms limited to 10 years, or so. That way, every administration can make a few appointments.

That, or just tell McConnell where he can watch children burning alive inside a building where no one can see how hard he laughs, and just don't let anyone rescue him. Problem solves itself it seems. You might have to make Ted Cruz actually look at himself in a mirror for an hour, and figure out whether or not he is just a set of haunted tupperware, or if he has a soul, what happened to it? And let Lindsay Graham take credit for "Deshaun Watson-ing, but with dudes!"

 

Speaking of Maverick/ turncoats, does anyone else think that Manchin and Sinema have been paid off to keep the Dems' agendas from succeeding?

 

I’m not sure but I think that if the Dems pick up another senate seat or 2, they will jump ship and change parties.

 

Sienna, definitely. She’s a shameless famewhore and bad actor who ignores her constituents and has generally been nothing but a pain in the ass to the people she works for, and with.

She sucks. Probably a legit sociopath, too.

 

There was a leaked call between Manchin and a group of donors in which they were pressing him hard to maintain the filibuster (because it's useful for the rich folk to kill progressive legislation) and he was basically saying "if you want me to preserve the filibuster, you need to lean on some Republicans to give votes on the 1/6 commission, because letting them filibuster that shit is making it almost impossible to defend keeping the filibuster." He all but said they should bribe Roy Blunt to that effect.

So yeah, he's pretty well bought, but in a more subtle and traditional "in the pocket of lobbyists" way then a mustache twirling "secret Republican."