Sounds Legit

Off the AP wire ...

Zimbabwean aviation authorities impounded a U.S.-registered cargo jet, a senior official said Monday, after a dead body later believed to be a stowaway and millions of South African rand were found on board.

More here.

Peak Fournier

Ron Fournier says GOP decision not to hold hearings on Obama nominee is sign of systemic dysfunction. Fault of both parties equally.

LOL.

LOL. Has Anyone Looked at What Schumer Actually Said?

As I've noted in a few of my posts, none of the purported 'precedents' Republicans have come up with over the last three days to justify their actions speaks at all to the current situation President Obama faces after the death of Justice Scalia. But even the seeming Holy Grail of GOP gotchas - Sen. Schumer's speech before the American Constitution Society in 2007 - basically says nothing when you actually hear or read what he said, as opposed the media chatter or even the brief Politico write-up everyone has been passing around.

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We're Hiring a Polling Intern!

TPM is seeking a Polling Intern to help manage its award winning app, PollTracker. This is a paid internship program in which interns get a crash course in polling and in how a digital media news organization works from the ground up. We’re taking applications for a polling internship to begin immediately.

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We Already Know What Kind of Nominee Obama Will Choose

We're hearing all sorts of chatter right now about what sort of nominee President Obama should send to the Senate, given the more or less flat rejection of any nominee. I say 'more or less' because even those who don't quite accept McConnell's flat refusal are I think still intending to vote down any nominee. Should he nominate a super liberal nominee, someone who most helps the 2016 election campaign, a quasi-conservative in the hopes of pulling a few a few Republican senators over? The last suggestion strikes me as silly. But I think most of the speculation is itself beside the point and sort of silly because there are things about Obama himself which I think tell us how this plays out.

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Astonishing

Earlier this morning I was listening to Pete Williams on MSNBC saying there's basically precedent on both sides for what the Republicans are now trying to do: block the President from making a Supreme Court nomination at the beginning of the last year of his term, and that the GOP has plenty of precedent on its side. That is frankly an astonishing claim, with virtually no history to support it. It is also a sobering example of how successful Republicans are usually and are now at working the mainstream media to normalize what are in fact unprecedented actions.

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Playthings

I noted last night that one of the most telling things about the immediate reaction to Justice Antonin Scalia's death was that even the deeply mainstream and well-respected "SCOTUSBlog" published an appreciation of Scalia which took it as a given that the Republican Senate majority would refuse to confirm any nomination to replace Scalia. This evening I saw an email from the RNC research department claiming that Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) is a 'hypocrite' for saying the Senate should fulfill its constitutional duty and hold a vote on President Obama's nominee to succeed Justice Scalia.

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The Hair Apparent

Beside all the political and electoral stuff we were talking about last night, I mentioned my strong belief that Jeb 2.0! had gotten a new hairstyle, something that seemed lost on the purportedly close-watching pundit class. TPM colleagues were not convinced. But with the exception of David Kurtz, who has little excuse, I've been at this much longer. And I think reader response and photographic evidence bears me out.

We got a number of TPM Reader emails noting the difference. But I think TPM Reader MR has the most detailed breakdown ...

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What Was That?

I find it hard to know quite what to say about this debate. It was chaotic and disordered. Lots of candidates called each other liars. Donald Trump used variations of the actual word numerous times. Our initial count from the rough transcript has Trump saying "single biggest liar" twice, "this guy lied" twice and "why do you lie" no less than three times. Rubes said Cruz "lies" a handful of times. And that was just the start of it. I don't think there's ever been a presidential debate where so many of the candidates have called each other liars so many times. At some moments the trash talking and chest-puffing and general drama got so intense I thought this might be a fair approximation of West Side Story if you'd written it about two battling country clubs, the plutocrats versus the plutocrat flunkies.

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SC Debate Blogging #2

10:02 PM: Trump: "We are not being treated properly."

10:15 PM: Ben Carson is truly stupid on almost every policy issue.

10:17 PM: If Jeb would have brought this Jeb earlier in the election he might still be in the election.

10:18 PM: What hasn't gotten a lot of discussion in the national political conversation is that Trump is in many ways a natural candidate for South Carolina. He's obviously not an evangelical. But South Carolina has been ravaged by globalization with numerous light industry jobs disappearing in recent decades. The Mexico and China bashing has a ready audience there.

10:24 PM: I think there's a decent argument that Donald Trump does love eminent domain.

10:27 PM: Trump to Cruz: "You are the single biggest liar."

10:28 PM: This is a thing of beauty.

10:29 PM: The Berlin Wall.

10:32 PM: This is certainly the most time the word "liar" has been used, especially in the vocative, in any debate ever.

SC Debate Blogging

9:10 PM: Does Marco Rubio know what a lameduck President is?

9:13 PM: It's genuinely comical to hear Republicans preach constitutional adherence and then insist on having the Senate not fulfill its explicit constitutional responsibilities.

9:15 PM: Cruz: "We're not going to give up the Supreme Court for a generation."

9:20 PM: So Rubio's moment of courage and decision was voting against an authorization of force in a case where he'd been insisting on bombing for months. Got it.

9:29 PM: Dickerson really did a disservice to America but cutting off Trump's attack on Bush's fourth place finish in New Hampshire.

9:32 PM: That's not a good quote for Trump.

9:33 PM: They need to escort everyone off stage but Trump and Bush and just finish this once and for all.

9:36 PM: Trump is going really, really long on the anti-Bush stuff. The thing to remember about South Carolina is that it's a big military and ex-military state. But just as important it's a very blue blood GOP. It's always been big on the Bush 'family'. I think this stuff works for Trump in nationally. But I'm not certain about South Carolina.

9:45 PM: Trump really knows how to just run out the clock.

What Now?

The political and legal implications of Antonin Scalia's death are so far-reaching -- and the speed with which the political dynamic has intruded on the mourning is so breath-taking -- that it truly boggles the mind. Law professor Rick Hasen coolly starts to work through the implications in this post at TPMCafe.

Norms Ain't How They Roll

As I noted in my post below, immediately after hearing of Justice Scalia's death, I had doubts that Republicans could resist the urge from their party's extremists to refuse to vote on a Supreme Court nomination this year. As we've seen from threatened debt defaults, routine government shutdowns and even the cooked up impeachment of a President going on two decades ago, there simply isn't any institutionalist juice left in the GOP to resist yet another norm-violating power grab. And the truth is they've paid no price for the various other examples. Indeed, it is a sign of how far we've come that even mainstream Court watchers like SCOTUSBlog treated it as a given that Senate Republicans would take this course.

Right out of the gate, conservatives were insisting that Republicans not allow President Obama to nominate another Justice to the High Court. And just moments ago, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that he would not allows such a vote to be held. So, in essence, this debate over whether to keep this seat vacant for likely as long as a year and a half lasted about an hour.

Thoughts on Justice Scalia's Passing

Let us first recognize the unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a 79 year old man with a large family and almost countless admirers, friends and proteges. I think he had precious few supporters or ideological admirers among our core readers. But this is a man who served on the High Court for almost thirty years and unquestionably, for better or worse, will go down as one of the most influential Justices of the last half century. Indeed that time scope may be too short to capture the breadth of his influence. Very early in his time on the Court, I think in 1988, he gave a talk to a class I was in college. From that experience and what I have heard from many sources over the years, Scalia was as charming and appealing on a personal level as his jurisprudence was retrograde and deplorable to progressives and liberals on an ideological level. Our ideological and partisan commitments should never be so all-encompassing that we cannot step aside from them to recognize realities that transcend them: in this case, that this was a genuinely brilliant man and a patriot.

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Scalia Dead at 79

According to multiple reports in the local press in Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead in his room today at a Texas ranch/resort. There were no signs of foul play.