About that GOP Senate “Discipline” Problem? It’s Even Worse Than They Thought. Now They’re Sniping At Each Other Over The Past

These are the days that I love getting up in the morning. Well, after 10 am anyway, let’s not get carried away. Yesterday I wrote an article about how GOP leadership, especially in the Senate were worried about constant self inflicted gunshot wounds, and looking for discipline. I wrote then that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn’t had control over his caucus for the last two years now.

And if new reporting in The Hill is anything to go by, McConnell isn’t going to be getting any of it in the next two years, either. Not only are members of his caucus sniping at each other anew, but they’re sniping over something that rightfully belongs in the category of ancient history.

In the four years that McConnell ran a do nothing Senate, McConnell’s only claim to fame was as a judicial confirmation savant. Pundits either marveled, or were horrified by the way he was reshaping the judiciary for the next generation at least, including two totally unqualified morons to the SCOTUS. He and Traitor Tot both bragged about it.

Well, guess what? The Hill reports that the Senate Democrats just took a little time to celebrate passing their 100 judicial nominee in to the bench. This pace puts Biden and the Schumer Senate far ahead of the pace that Trump and McConnell had maintained through the first two years of Trump’s ill fated dictatorship. Which isn’t going over very well with some of the whinier members of the GOP Senate caucus.

Open seditionist and world class CBB (Cry Baby Bastard) Josh Hawley is feeling pissy, and he doesn’t mind at all hosing down his own coworkers. Hawley is pissed at GOP Judiciary committee ranking member Lindsey Graham, for, as he sees it, basically being a GOP rubber stamp for the Biden/Schumer judicial treadmill. He has a point. The Hill found that Graham has voted to approve more Democratic nominees than any other Republican on the committee.

But see, here’s where the wheels fall off of the Hawley bitchin’ bus. Hawley is bitching about votes took back in 2021-2022. Per Senate rules, a 50-50 Senate leads to an equal number of members on the panel. Senate protocol is that it takes a majority vote to pass a nominee to the floor. And Graham kept mucking that up.

“The truth is the leadership squandered a 50-50 Senate. They could have at the committee level made a major push to vote together and to stop at least the circuit court nominees. Every single one of them would have required a discharge petition. We didn’t do that,” Hawley told The Hill.

That seems like a logical complaint by Hawley, if you ignore one little thing. It’s. Not. True. As was frequently reported during the Trump-McConnell judge-o-rama, although Senate rules say that a confirmation vote can’t pass out of committee without a majority vote. It doesn’t really matter. Because it’s the Senate Majority Leader who actually controls the voting calendar. As was reported at the time, even if Brewski Brett Kavanaugh tanked his committee vote, there was nothing to stop McConnell from calling his nomination to the floor for debate and a vote, and let the chips fall where they may.

I wrote yesterday that McConnell hasn’t had control over his caucus in the last two years. The prosecution rests. Two things. First, McConnell is the Senate Minority Leader. If he was pissed at Graham at the time, he could have just called him into his office, and tell him to quit passing nominations, vote no with the caucus, and let procedural foofaraw slow down the nomination. There’s been no reporting that McConnell did any such thing. And even if he did, obviously it didn’t make any lasting impression on Graham.

Second, Lindsey Graham is the ranking member of the Judiciary committee, meaning that he has the longest tenure on the committee. Josh Hawley is the most junior member of the committee, in his first term in the Senate. And yet here he is, shitting all over the senior member over his voting record. If McConnell wants to instill discipline, he could start by clopping Hawley over the head and telling him to fall in line. But apparently Hawley is confident that McConnell is a toothless tiger.

For his part, Graham is trying to downplay the controversy with a little factual bait -and-switch. He told The Hill that there wasn’t much he could do, considering the fact that the Democrats have an 11-10 advantage. He’s conveniently ignoring the fact that Hawley is complaining about the last two years, when the panel was 10-10. But then even Graham couldn’t resist stepping on his own crank:

“They got the votes. Elections matter. We’ll fight when it makes sense,” he said. “We were accused of having a conveyor belt” of Trump judicial nominees when Republicans controlled the Senate.

Nice going, Leningrad Lindsey. Nice way to spotlight the fact that the whole reason the Democrats are out of the gate like a bat out of hell is because you guys did the same thing for four years. Give Hawley something else to whack you over the head with, and keep the issue front and center.

This isn’t a Senate caucus, it’s an older, grayer version of the GOP House monkey island. And McConnell ain’t changing jack,  because he’s lost his mojo. Tell me again Mitch, why did you run for reelection?