It's Friday, October 14, and Day 243 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 212 since Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama to fill that vacancy.
Meanwhile, they're still holding that seat open for the guy the majority of them won't yet dump, Donald Trump. That continues even after he gave what might have been his most extreme speech yet, one that the alt-right ate up with a spoon, in which he repeated his boast that when he's president, he'll lock Hillary Clinton up. They're still raving about it. Just a reminder of the kinds of things they are cheering:
"[…] we are in fact controlled by a handful of global special interest rigging the system and our system is rigged. […] They will seek to destroy everything about you including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie and then again they will do worse than that. They will do whatever is necessary. The Clintons are criminals. Remember that. […]
We have seen this firsthand in the Wikileaks document in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. Sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers. […]
Lock her up.
Trump is attacking the free press more directly than ever. He vows to instruct his Department of Justice to jail his political opponent if he becomes president. He has promised to rewrite libel laws so that government officials could sue their critics in the media. He says he will kill the families of terrorists. He will bring back torture. He would "unilaterally slap a tax on the products of companies who build plants in foreign countries."
Trump promises a radically unconstitutional—not to mention un-American—presidency. And the Republican Senate continues to flirt with the disaster of his making a Supreme Court appointment. Perhaps they can assure themselves that it's highly unlikely he'll win the presidency, but the fact remains: they are leaving that possibility open.
Every single day we see Trump get more and more unhinged, more and more extreme. And Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans—including those who could have dumped Trump and could stop the blockade—are proving they're willing to take that chance.
Can you chip in $3 to each of these candidates to end Mitch McConnell's Senate leadership?
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