The Senate is back in session, even though there is no legislative business scheduled and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing nothing about the ongoing and worsening coronavirus crisis other than taking critical aid to state and local governments hostage. The House is taking the lead on that new bill, and should definitely be ignoring McConnell's ultimatums, and McConnell has ceded it to them. So why did he bring his Senate, nearly half of whom are over 65 years old, and their staff, and the floor staff, and the support staff for the whole institute back against the advice of the attending physician?
To shove through a promotion of his protege, Justin Walker. That's the 38-year old Kentuckian who McConnell got onto the district court in Kentucky just last fall, despite the fact that he was rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association because he had never even participated in a trial. And now, the most concrete thing on the Senate agenda is putting Walker on the second highest court in the nation.
He must be stopped. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as majority leader.
You will probably also remember Walker because he's the guy McConnell had to go party with, along with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, instead of passing what he later called an "urgent" coronavirus response bill. He put the Senate in recess for a long weekend so that he and Kavanaugh, for whom Walker clerked, could celebrate their right-wing extremism together.
HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery sums up what Walker, who has a committee hearing for this big promotion on Tuesday, has to recommend him. "McConnell has known him since high school, McConnell knows his grandfather, and McConnell recommended him to the White House last year for a Kentucky district court seat."
Democrats have been arguing that if they're going to be forced back to D.C. to do work, it had better be critical work that helps the nation in this crisis. "Rather than holding routine hearings, we need to address this public health emergency and the administration's implementation of funding," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and ranking member on the Judiciary Committee said last week.
Like McConnell gives a damn whether the Trump administration is responding to the crisis responsibly or even with a modicum of effectiveness and transparency. He simply doesn't care. He doesn't care if his actions kill off his own colleagues, he's not going to lament the deaths of thousands, or tens of thousands, of strangers. Not if he can capture the federal courts for the next generation and undo a century's worth of social progress.