Have You Considered What Mitch McConnell Will Do To Wreck This SCOTUS Nomination?

I must confess to mixed feelings when I heard about Justice Stephen Breyer resigning from the Supreme Court. First of all, I was relieved that he did so and didn’t allow the situation to go into another Ruth Bader Ginsburg tragedy, where she literally died at the 11th hour, six weeks before the election. So I felt elation. Then following swiftly upon that sentiment was terror, tinged with paranoia. What oh what, I asked myself, wringing my hands, could Mitch McConnell do to screw this up?

Granted the man is now the minority leader, but after his hocus pocus with both the Merrick Garland and the Amy Coney Barrett nominations, I frankly fear what he might come up with next.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Listen to Bess Levin, Vanity Fair:

While Joe Biden’s nominee will not reshape the 6–3 makeup of the court, whoever receives the nod will undoubtedly be much younger, and likely to sit on the bench for 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. According to the Senator, 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, presumably, 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! 

Sure, the odds are extremely high that Biden’s nominee goes through, but there’s also an extremely high chance that McConnell will take to the Senate floor to announce 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 his cat learns to use the toilet on its own. “Which,” you can’t tell us he wouldn’t declare, “happened today, just before I left for work. So, sorry to President Biden. Better luck next time.”

Meanwhile, in Delusion-ville

So after Fox News and right-wing media push a wild theory that Kamala Harris may be nominated to the Supreme Court, NBC News' Peter Alexander asks Jen Psaki if there's "any scenario" in which that happens.

Psaki says she won't talk about SCOTUS until Breyer speaks out publicly. pic.twitter.com/0INDMgAoar

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 26, 2022

Naturally, Fox News needs to make a cartoon out of it all. Here’s what this story looks like over on that lunatic ward. Daily Beast:

According to Fox’s supposed “straight news” anchor Harris Faulkner and her colleague Kayleigh McEnany, one “credible” theory is that Biden will try to place Vice-President Kamala Harris on the bench in order to push her out of the White House.

“So this person has to be a woman, she’s got to be Black and she has to be younger,” the so-called “straight news” anchor said. “Anyone thinking what I’m thinking? They don’t know what to do with Kamala Harris in the White House right now. I can’t be the only person seeing this!”

Adding that she’s “chatted about it” with McEnany, Faulkner said she’s “read” that “maybe something like this could happen” with Harris because Biden could run for re-election with someone else on the ticket.

“Look, I prefer to drink my tea rather than read the tea leaves, but when Jonathan Turley puts out the information of young, Black and female, it’s hard not to see,” Faulkner, shooting from the hip, continued. “At least she makes the list?”

McEnany, a former Trump White House spokesperson turned Fox News co-host, took the ball from Faulkner and ran with it.

“I think you’re right,” McEnany responded. “I’m glad you said that, Harris, because that was playing in my mind from the moment that we heard about this retirement.”

Noting that the people in the administration are reportedly unhappy with the vice-president, she insisted “it’s a possibility” that the veep “will readily consider or accept” given the “frustration she’s incurred” during her time in office.

“I think it’s a theory that could be credible,” McEnany added.

Faulkner wrapped up their theorizing by claiming the Supreme Court could provide a chance for Harris to “stand up” and find a job “she actually relishes and would love to be able to do” and “do something great.”

At the same time, the Fox host eventually admitted this was all just unfounded punditry not backed up by any reporting.

“We don’t know,” she added. “And the reporting we point to is just about the dissension and drama behind the scenes and her low poll numbers.”

And there you have it, the Foxites live and die by poll numbers. That and creating red herrings.

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