Beg Your Pardon, Susan Collins?
It's your Sunday show rundown!
Earlier this week, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer informed President Joe Biden of his coming retirement in June. Thus begins another SCOTUS confirmation and the return of ... The Ghouls of SCOTUS Nominations Past!
ABC's "This Week"
Maine's Senator Susan Collins, fresh from showing her doorknob collection to her niece Samantha, decided to try to set up her excuse for her eventual "NO" vote on the very qualified yet still to be determined SCOTUS nominee.
After giving empty platitudes, Collins proceeded to pull bullshit reasons out of nowhere for why she will object to this nomination.
COLLINS: [...] But the way that the president has handled this nomination has been clumsy at best. It adds to the further perception that the court is a political institution like Congress when it is not supposed to be.
Appointments to the Supreme Court are NOT political? We beg to differ, Susan. As George Stephanopoulos pointed out to Collins, Ronald Reagan said he would appoint a woman before he selected Sandra Day O'Connor and Trump announced he would pick a woman within hours of RBG's passing. Biden announcing he would select a Black woman to fill a SCOTUS vacancy, whether as president or candidate, is no different. But Collins continued trying to insist otherwise.
COLLINS: Actually, this isn't exactly the same. I’ve looked at what was done in both cases. And what President Biden did was as a candidate, make this pledge. And that helped politicize the entire nomination process.
Funny, Susan Collins's research failed to mention that Reagan announced he would pick a woman for SCOTUS while he was a candidate, similar to Biden. It astounds me the levels of research GOP politicians will do to find arcane reasons to do what they wish while telling lies easily debunked by historians or anyone with basic Google skills.
But the most disturbing moment is when Stephanopoulos asks Collins about Trump floating potential pardons if he is re-elected for his failed insurrection pawns.
COLLINS: Well, we're a long ways from 2024. But let me say this, I do not think the president should have made — that President Trump should have made that pledge to do pardons. We should let the judicial process proceed.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we're a long way away from —
COLLINS: January 6th was a dark day in our history.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It was. And you voted to convict President Trump as well. Why can't you rule out supporting him in 2024?
COLLINS: Well, certainly it's not likely given the many other qualified candidates that we have that have expressed interest in running. So it's very unlikely.
As "unlikely" as Brett Kavanaugh voting to overturn Roe v Wade? Collins voted to impeach and convict Trump in his second impeachment, which would have made him ineligible to run for federal office ever again if we lived in a proper democracy, but couldn't muster the vaguest attempt to shut the door on endorsing Trump in 2024. Collins will fall in line, like those "other qualified candidates" if Trump announces he's running.
CBS's "Face The Nation"
Political remora and US Senator Lindsey Graham gave a very different answer than Collins when asked the same question about Biden's potential SCOTUS nominee.
GRAHAM: Well, it's not different to me. Put me in the camp of making sure the court and other institutions look like America.
Well...um...that sounds reasonable and great! I'm sure Graham didn't fuck that up a nanosecond later...
GRAHAM: [...] You know, we make a real effort as Republicans to recruit women and people of color to make the party look more like America. Affirmative action is picking somebody not as well qualified for past wrongs. [...]
Oh for fuck's sake! "Making institutions look like America" is what affirmative action does.
But when Graham was asked about Trump's pardon-dangling, he gave a more forceful answer than Collins. He said he didn't want to give the impression it was okay to defile the Capitol or incentivize future insurrectionists. Which sounded good on paper until ...
GRAHAM: Kamala Harris- Yeah. Well, I think it's inappropriate. I- I don't want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was OK. I don't want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future. And just let me finish my thought here. When Kamala Harris and her associates and the people that work for her, her staffers, raised money to bail out the rioters who hit cops in the head and burned down stores. I didn't like that either. So I don't want to do anything from raising bail to pardoning people who take the law into their own hands because it will make more violence more likely.
Vice President Kamala Harris was not and is not President. BLM did not try to overturn the government. Police instigated violence at protests. This is not the same thing in any way.
Fox News Sunday
We'll end this week on a great moment of pushback on former Press Secretary Dana Perino and Fox's made-up war on "wokeness":
"I think a lot of it is driving a stake through a strawman" -- Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby on Fox News' concerns about "wokeness" in the militarypic.twitter.com/fWc9tMM0b8— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1643553660
Driving stakes through strawmen is the entire GOP platform.
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Biden Loses 2024 Election To Imaginary Faceless Republican, Beats All The Ones With Faces
There's a lesson in here.
Politico/Morning Consult is out with one of those so-called "polls" they do, to find out what Americans so-called "think" about "things." As we all know, the Beltway media is all doom and gloom about the Democrats' prospects from here until the end of time, but this poll is here to tell us it might not be all that bad.
If the 2024 election were held today — and to be clear, it is not being held today — Joe Biden would lose, were he matched up with an imaginary, nameless, faceless, headless Republican. Indeed, he'd lose by nine points (46 to 37) to Imaginary Headless Faceless Republican! The trouble comes in for Republicans when they have names and faces and personalities and voices and heads. Then everybody hates them, or at least likes them much less.
According to the graphic below from Politico, Biden edges Donald Trump by one mere point, with more votes up for grabs, which is clearly within the margin of error. (For an election that's over two years away.) Yep, 44 percent of respondents are still stickin' with the ringleader of the 1/6 terrorists!
But put Biden up against other recognizable Republicans? Ted Cruz? Biden wins by six points. Hell, Biden could probably win Ted's vote if he'd just insult Ted's wife.
Against Mike Pence? Biden by two. Ron DeSantis? Biden by five.
Room for improvement? Certainly. But not a failed Biden presidency, like the Beltway media seems to be insisting to us on a daily basis.
Politico Playbook notes another little factoid you'll find if you dig deeper, and it is that only 49 percent of Republicans want Trump as their first choice in the 2024 primary. They might be stupid enough to cling to the Big Lie that Trump won, but that doesn't mean they want to watch that man waddle around and whine for four more years. Playbook puts it in perspective, pointing out that Trump is at the front of the pack, but there are others in the mix there, like DeSantis and Pence. Hell, if you take Trump all the way out of the mix, 24 percent of GOP voters become Diaper Don supporters.
So what does this teach us, class? That's right, it teaches us that no matter what slate of options Republicans have in front of them, they'll usually figure out a way to choose a physically repulsive bigoted white guy.
On the midterms front, the generic congressional ballot is tied at 42 percent each for Democrats and Republicans, so don't listen to hacks who demand the right to tell you Congress is lost forever. Indeed, the parties' congressional favorability and unfavorability ratings are almost identical. It's probably anybody's game at this point.
We don't know why they asked this, but the favorability rating for the Senate's Dumbest Republican Ron Johnson is just 12 percent. He's up for re-election in November. That's one equation we should be able to solve.
And finally, shockingly, Americans YOOGELY approve of the Biden administration's plans for getting them at-home COVID tests (72 percent) and N95 masks (68 percent). The lesson here is either that Americans like it when government does good things that help them, or they just like free shit and would say the same if the Biden administration was handing out certificates for a free Frosty at Wendy's, which come to think of it, couldn't hurt us in the midterms and the 2024 election.
In summary and in conclusion, vote for Joe Biden and get a free Frosty.*
You know, unless Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema fuck that up too.**
*Perhaps, and only if they take Wonkette's sage advice.
**Sorry about your Frosty :(
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Chuck Schumer: Nice Filibuster You Got There. Shame If Something Were To Happen To It.
DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!
"The Senate was designed to protect the political rights of the minority in the chamber, through the promise of debate and the opportunity to amend. But over the years, those rights have been warped and contorted to obstruct and embarrass the will of majority – something our Founders explicitly opposed."
Thus spake Chuck Schumer in a Dear Colleague letter sent this morning. The Senate majority leader is putting down a marker on voting rights legislation, threatening to amend the filibuster if Republicans continue to block any bill ensuring ballot access as gerrymandered state legislatures throw up obstacles to voting, or even laying the groundwork to reject results outright.
Schumer invokes the one-year anniversary of the day when hundreds of goons "fueled by conspiracy and the ravings of a vengeful former President" descended on the Capitol "in a naked attempt to derail our Republic’s most sacred tradition: the peaceful transfer of power."
"Our democracy held – for now," he adds, although the jury's still out on that one, TBQH.
Referring to vote suppression bills passed in the states "under the guise of so-called 'election integrity,'” Schumer promises that "we can and must take strong action to stop this antidemocratic march."
Let me be clear: January 6th was a symptom of a broader illness — an effort to delegitimize our election process, and the Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration — they will be the new norm. Given the urgency of the situation and imminence of the votes, we as Senate Democrats must urge the public in a variety of different ways to impress upon their Senators the importance of acting and reforming the Senate rules, if that becomes a perquisite for action to save our democracy.
(Let's assume he means "prerequisite.")
He goes on to remind the Democratic caucus that the filibuster rule is nowhere in the Constitution, and the Founders knew how to mandate a supermajority when they wanted one, as in impeachments and treaty ratification, noting, "The weaponization of rules once meant to short-circuit obstruction have been hijacked to guarantee obstruction." In addition to which, state legislatures that are gerrymandered to shit are passing vote suppression bills on a simple majority, while Congress, which has the power to enact voting rights legislation, has tied its own hands with a 60-vote requirement.
And just like Mitch McConnell ditched the filibuster for judges, the current Senate can change its own rules as it sees fit.
We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before. The Senate was designed to evolve and has evolved many times in our history. As former Senator Robert Byrd famously said, Senate Rules “must be changed to reflect changed circumstances.” Put more plainly by Senator Byrd, “Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.”
But it's not clear if Schumer has the votes to create a filibuster carve out for an election bill. Notably, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have expressed hostility to amending the filibuster, even as they support the election reform bill. Manchin has expressed confidence that he can get Republicans to go along with voting rights reform (LOL, okay, Joe), and has indicated that he might be open to a filibuster carve out if he can't (LOLOLOL, okay, Joe).
So who knows whether the needle moves from this. But it's a big shift in the way Democrats are talking about the filibuster, and not a second too soon. Tick tock, people, it's 2022 and we're 10 months from the election. GET MOVING!
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Joe Rogan Picks Joe Biden's 2024 Replacement For Us And Sure, F*ck It, Why Not
Michelle Obama is telling you she is not going to the White House again.
Former first lady Michelle Obama has repeatedly stated she’s not interested in politics and wants to enjoy her fabulous life. She said in 2018: “I’ve never had the passion for politics. I just happened to be married to somebody who has the passion for politics, and he drug me kicking and screaming into the arena.”
However, noted political pundit and deep thinker Joe Rogan suggested that Obama could replace President Joe Biden at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket. On his podcast Monday, he said: "Harris comes back as the Vice President and Michelle Obama is the President. We get a double dose of diversity.”
Or we get two exceptional, talented women who are more capable than the ragamuffin Donald Trump/Ron DeSantis dream team Rogan presumes will run in 2024. It’s not just about diversity. An all-white male GOP ticket is just as reflective of “identity politics” as an all-Black woman Democratic ticket.
But before we get too far into this, let’s stress that Biden is probably running in 2024. Yes, he’s 79 and mortal, but he’s still relevant to this discussion.
Rogan extended some enthusiastic and only mildly racist praise for Obama:
“I really believe if Michelle Obama runs, she wins,” Rogan also added. “She’s great, she’s intelligent, she’s articulate, she’s the wife of the best president that we have had in our lifetime in terms of like a representative of intelligent articulate people.”
Michelle Obama graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law, so the guy who ate a roach on "Fear Factor" would someday recognize that she’s well-spoken.
Over on Fox News, Pete Hegseth, who was filling in for Sean Hannity, asked the articulate Matt Schlapp and Rep. Nancy Mace what they thought of Rogan’s prediction, because apparently Rogan is a serious person who doesn’t just make noises with his mouth.
SCHLAPP: It’s very interesting with the identity politics of the Democratic Party, this new socialist Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party is not a socialist party, and it’s both hilarious and infuriating that Republicans keep dismissing “identity politics" when the GOP is openly a white Christian identity party. Anyway, Schlapp admitted he doesn’t know Biden personally, but he’s gonna go ahead and assume Biden is too senile and decrepit to run again in 2024 unless "they can do one of these pseudo-presidential races where he stays in his basement with Hunter and everybody can vote as many times as they want through the mail.”
Biden beat Trump from his garden-level office, which is pretty damning of Schlapp’s Dear Leader, so Schlapp grossly suggests that people voted illegally — multiple times, even! — by mail. There is zero evidence to support his claim, but undermining the integrity of US elections is a major plank of the Republican Party platform. Schlapp then launched into a racist, misogynistic rant against Harris.
SCHLAPP: So now you have the identity politics of picking Kamala Harris. Why? Well, she’s a woman, she’s a woman of color, she comes from California, she’s very leftwing. Now they have this problem of, "Oh my God, they’ve gotten to see Kamala Harris, and she’s terrible.”
I mean where is she, on planet Mars during all of this? I mean they don’t put her out at all because she’s not able to connect to the American people.
He means “white people.” Harris is actually polling around the same as Donald Trump himself when he was president, and that’s just on Trump’s good days. His approval rating frequently dipped into the mid-30s, and no one talked about replacing him in 2020. The Fox News propaganda machine just insisted that Trump was bigger than both the Beatles and Jesus.
SCHLAPP: So they’re gonna replace Kamala Harris. They gotta look to the identity politics, and I have to say, Michelle Obama fits that type of thinking. Another woman of color who’s obviously got good poll numbers.
If Michelle Obama chose to run for president, she wouldn’t be an affirmative action pick. She’s incredibly popular. If anyone owes their current status to their racial identity, it’s Matt Schlapp.
During this discussion, Rep. Nancy Mace smiled uncomfortably as if passing a kidney stone on live television. Her sole contribution was to claim she couldn’t think of a single good thing the Biden/Harris administration has done for the country. She should probably talk to her fellow Republicans who shamelessly took credit for the many benefits in Biden’s COVID-19 relief package, which they voted against.
Personally, I’m looking forward to Biden’s announcing he’s gonna run again and he’s gonna win.
[Mediaite]
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