Mitch McConnell is the Republican Senator Leader (either minority or majority, depending on the year) for one reason and one reason only. Mitch McConnell is the man most able to shamelessly bend rules, lie, reverse course, be a hypocrite, at a level to which no one else could even aspire.

I mean, truly, who would have thought that with people having already started voting that Mitch McConnell would suddenly reverse course on his reasoning used against Obama and rush – and we do mean rush – to fill that SCOTUS seat without simply dying of shame in a puddle of piss? We truly believe that Lindsey Graham meant it when he said that they would not fill the seat in the last year of a presidency. But he didn’t know it wouldn’t be up to him.

It was up to Mitch McConnell. Yes, Trump said he wanted it. But McConnell could’ve said, “I can’t do it, I was too firm last time. We got two SCOTUS and hundreds below, run on that record.” It would never have happened. Now watch this:

The Senate just voted to advance one of the most qualified nominees in generations. Judge Barrett’s intellectual brilliance, integrity, and commitment to impartiality are above reproach.

Tomorrow, we will vote to confirm the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) October 25, 2020

There is no question Amy Coney-Barrett is extremely qualified. There is no question she has intellectual brilliance. There is no question she has “integrity” in the regular sense of the word. It is the last line that is so hilarious that it makes one nearly fall off the chair. If she had ANY commitment to impartiality she wouldn’t be on the list of twenty judges submitted by the Federalist Society from which Trump had to pick one.

Trump himself promised to pick judges that would overturn Roe v. Wade, Trump himself brought up the need to have a full-court to hear the case on Obamacare and she has written law review articles on her beliefs about the ACA and that she criticized Roberts’ opinion, it is fairly difficult to believe that she hasn’t made a determination as to the constitutionality of the ACA (if Medicare is constitutional, so is the ACA), and finally, Trump said that he needed a full Court in case the election came down to the court for a decision. He may not have asked how she’d vote, but you can bet the Federalist Society did.

Now check this out:

McConnell, just after the Senate votes to limit debate on Amy Coney Barrett: "A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come."

— Nicholas Fandos (@npfandos) October 25, 2020

Put simply, Amy Coney-Barrett is on the Court (basically) precisely because she isn’t even slightly impartial. Want to know who was impartial? Merrick Garland, a judge with decades of experience and famously centrist. And that is why he was unacceptable. The problem is that his statement is largely true. We would go back to the time when FDR tried to move packages through to help with the Great Depression, only to have them struck down, time and again. It is precisely for that reason that court packing must be considered strongly, or at least the process begun.

Justices do not like the thought of losing their power by 1/9th to 1/11th, or even 1/13th – and thus, with a clear threat, one could see results one wouldn’t normally expect from a court like that. Go back and look up West Coast Hotel v. Parish, or what became known as “the switch in time that saved nine,” as at least one justice figured out that if he kept blocking FDR’s legislation, his power would decrease incrementally with new justices.

It would be all too appropriate for McConnell’s arrogance and irony to come back and bite him in the ass because his statement is nothing but congratulating himself, as being the only person in America hypocritical enough, and shameless enough, to pull off what he did. It is why the Republicans put up with an asshole that no one likes. More people like Rand Paul than Mitch McConnell, and that should tell you something.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak