In the last hundred years four Democratic presidents have been elected to a second term as president. Only two did so winning a majority of the popular vote in both elections – Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama.
The bogus kerfuffle over a supposed “gaffe” about women that John Kasich made this morning at a rally outside of DC was kicked off by a misleadingly edited video clip. Here’s what he really said.
Shake-up in the Cruz campaign gives you the sense that Cruz creates a milieu of petty viciousness, dishonesty and casual malignity around himself.
Buried lede in the story about Cruz’s father saying that God sent a message to Cruz’s wife, Heidi, that Ted should run for president: even God doesn’t want to talk to Ted.
No alternative or dark explanations are required when it comes to Republican desires to dictate the replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Control of the federal judiciary has been a transcendent goal of the conservative movement for two generations. And in the face of political and demographic change, the Republican Party has become increasingly dependent on the Supreme Court to entrench its political power through attacks on voting rights, unions, one person one vote and decisions like Citizens United, not to mention Bush v. Gore. So the stakes, on the merits, are vast. And yet the manner of the refusal to even entertain the nomination of a President with a year left in office is, as Lauren Fox notes in this story, simply a culmination of Republican efforts not simply to block Obama’s policies but to delegitimize, degrade and denigrate his presidency and the man himself.
Rep. Issa (R) is encouraging members of the US military to refuse to carry out President Obama’s orders to close the the Gitmo prison facility.
There’s nothing really different today than what Mitch McConnell committed Republicans to only hours after Justice Scalia’s death. But we now have a formal embrace of the ‘Three Nos’: No meetings, no hearings, no vote.
Indeed, from what I’m hearing McConnell won’t even commit to an up or down vote on a nominee from the next President. So he may want to keep this going into a next Democratic term if there is one. Indeed, all Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee committing to McConnell that they will hold no hearings on any Obama nominees. And this comes after top Republicans insisted they will not even meet with any Obama nominee, let alone hold a hearing.
As I said before, let’s not forget the massive stakes for Republicans in the next Supreme Court nominee. Many Republicans would genuinely prefer to maintain control of the Supreme Court than elect the next President. Republican control of the Court, a de facto reality for more than a generation with total control going back a decade, is that big a deal. Yet there’s a lot more weakness to Senate Republicans’ embrace of the “three nos” yesterday than I think most observers, certainly most Beltway observers, realize. Not just no confirmation, but no vote, no hearings, not even courtesy meetings. They even took this bizarre step of having all the members of the Senate Judiciary sign a letter pledging absolutely not to hold any hearings of any Obama nominee. The signatures appear to be in ink not blood. But who knows?
As I said, I don’t need to be convinced that Republicans will do anything to block President Obama from choosing Scalia’s successor. But I think they protest way, way too much about the brittleness of their position and the potential electoral fallout. The emphaticness of the “three nos” isn’t really necessary to convince anyone at this point. It’s to make the point so ferociously, totally, almost maniacally that they can actually end the debate now. But I doubt they actually can. And I think the fallout for Republican senators up for reelection in swing states this year is potentially far greater than people realize.
Grassley explains refusal to meet with nominee, hold hearings or vote: “I’m here to do my job.”
As I said, they need this debate to end immediately. It doesn’t get any better from here.
