It's as if no one in the Republican Party, and few within the D.C. punditry, can remember anything that happened before January 21, 2017. For example:
Yes, that’s the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who steadfastly refused to hold a courtesy meeting or any hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland for 10 months. Really. Relatedly, here’s his leader.
Okay, so technically a blockade isn’t the same thing as a filibuster, but fuck you, Mitch McConnell. Fuck you for declaring, literally within a few hours of Antonin Scalia’s death, “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” And you’re bitching about the Democrats? Proof there is no god, because McConnell would have been struck by lightning years ago for this kind of shit.
How about this one?
Yeah, Merrick Garland. And that thing you said just last November about how you’d never be part of blowing up the filibuster.
Then there’s this, which I don’t even know, except that someone has a lot of work to do to catch up to how all this works.
Seriously, if you don’t understand how this stuff works, just shut up. Then there’s just the lies.
Josh Holmes is former chief of staff to Mitch McConnell. Just for “context,” Justice Kennedy was confirmed in an election year. Robert Bork was not filibustered by Democrats. Bork got a vote, and Republicans helped defeat him. Douglas Ginsburg withdrew his nomination when social conservatives freaked out after he admitted he’d smoked pot.
Then there’s this. Which, it’s Spicer, so you’d expect little else, but still.
This is not Democrats setting a “dangerous precedent.” This is Democrats using a well-established parliamentary tool that hasn’t been used in forever because past presidents and past majority parties understood that bipartisan support on something as big as the Supreme Court was kind of important.
Down to President Obama. Why did he pick Merrick Garland? In part because Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT) had advocated for him as a nominee! Speaking of whom,
You know what? Fuck you too, Orrin Hatch.