It's Friday, July 22, and Day 160 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell laid down his Supreme Court blockade: No meetings, no hearings, no votes on his replacement. It's also Day 123 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. What's the Senate doing today instead of considering the Supreme Court nominee?
If they're Republicans running for re-election, they're probably huddled with advisors, trying to figure out how to deal with the smoking remnants of their party in the wake of Trump's convention. What they probably aren't doing, if they're Republicans, is feeling any pangs of regret or responsibility for this:
Bob Simon left his job at the White House a few months ago—about three years after he was nominated for a top science post. He was never confirmed by the Senate.
After his nearly three decades as a federal employee working across the government on energy issues, Simon's new role is "Taking Time to Decompress and Reassess," according to his LinkedIn profile.
Simon isn't alone. He's one of many people who signed up for top jobs in the Obama administration, submitted to lengthy background investigations and sometimes sat through grueling confirmation hearings where they were grilled by the president's critics about agency policies. Then they waited, realizing at some point that they weren't likely to get the jobs. Some retired; some have stayed on in other federal jobs.
One nominee died while waiting for the Senate to act.
That would be Cassandra Butts, who Obama nominated to be the ambassador to the Bahamas in early 2014. She was blocked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for no reason that anyone could comprehend other than she was a close friend and former classmate of the president.
It's not just Merrick Garland. The over-the-top political pettiness of Republicans is breaking everything, the Congress, the judiciary, and the executive.
Please donate $3 today to help turn the Senate blue and get all branches of government working again.