Sunday Funnies

Three-dimensional chess not necessary

When checkers is too tough for your opponents.

My favorite of all was LDS Bishop Hatch saying this ...

GOP Sen. Hatch last week: Obama "could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man. He probably won’t do that" https://t.co/pKzQ80UKQt

— Sudeep Reddy (@Reddy) March 16, 2016

... and then Jake Tapper elbowed the Utahn in the teeth with this:

CNN's Jake Tapper challenges Sen. Orrin Hatch: "You must be thrilled Obama followed your suggestion" on SCOTUS nom. https://t.co/eK5RnbUPfV

— Media Matters (@mmfa) March 16, 2016

Even when you consider the mean IQ of these Republickin pigs running the Senate, Judge Garland is still a sacrificial lamb to the politics of the extremists.

Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington D.C. Circuit will most likely not become Justice Merrick Garland of the Supreme Court, at least not while President Barack Obama remains in office. He seems unlikely to get even a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, or a vote either by that panel or the whole Senate. 

And it may be partly because it’s hard to imagine an Obama nominee more likely to win confirmation, if the Republicans allowed a vote.

He wouldn't have been my choice, but as when Antonin Scalia asked for Elena Kagan in 2009 (he got Sonia Sotomayor that year and Kagan in 2010) the opinion of the current SCOTUS judges as to who might be worthy to join them is apparently given serious consideration.

So respected is Garland as a judge that Chief Justice Roberts, at his confirmation hearing (in 2005), answered a question about one of his majority opinions by noting that Judge Garland had dissented and, said Roberts, "Anytime Judge Garland disagrees, you know you're in a difficult area."

Yeah, but still no, and that's a win-win.

(T)he pitched political battle over Garland’s fate could turn in unexpected ways, and will shape – and be shaped by – the 2016 race: Not just Donald Trump’s unprecedented presidential bid but the fight to control the Senate, in which a platoon of Senate Republicans are facing stiff challenges. 

[...] 

Garland’s nomination would need 14 Republicans to disrupt an inevitable filibuster, and five to be confirmed. Even if (SML Mitch) McConnell had not drawn that early line in the sand, that would not have been easy, but it would not have been impossible, and surely would have carried shorter odds than if Obama had chosen a nominee closer to the base of the Democratic party. Put differently, there would be comparatively little political danger to the GOP in considering, and rejecting a liberal firebrand, even one plucked from the ranks of women or minorities.

So who do you want picking your next Supreme Court justice (if it can't be Bernie Sanders, that is)? Trump with a Democratic Senate, or Clinton with a Democratic Senate?

For the Republican base, the issue is even more stark: it’s not just a question of how Garland would vote, it’s their refusal to countenance handing Obama any sort of victory. Polls conducted before Garland’s nomination found nearly seven in ten Republicans saying Obama shouldn’t even try to fill the seat. 

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus captured the two notions – the court’s potential shift, anger at Obama – on Twitter. “We won’t stand by while Obama attempts to install a liberal majority on #SCOTUS to undermine our Constitution & protect his lawless actions,” he said.

Overlook the misuse of the definition of the word 'lawless' here; this is the expiring establishment GOP making one last symbolic stand for their rebel base.  There's a little more back-and-forth at the link about whether McConnell will fold, whether the Republican senators on the verge of being swept out of office in a blue wave will convince him to at least hold a hearing, even if it's to turn down the best nominee suited to their philosophy they will ever get.  

Obama's already standing at the finish line while they are lacing up their shoes.

“We have forced them into a telescoping series of untenable positions, where even agreeing to meet with the guy is a cave in the view of their base,” said a senior Democratic congressional aide. 

“It’s a win-win situation. Either we get the confirmation, and change the balance of the court for a generation, or they have to fight to November defending the most extreme, untenable position of no-votes, and we’ll annihilate them on that,” the aide said. “And then President Clinton nominates” Scalia’s successor. 

So, the aide said, “I don’t care if McConnell caves or not.”

Checkmate, Mr. Turtle.  Care for a game of checkers?  You can be black this time ...

The hearse is waiting outside

There's room for another casket.  The one already in the back is ... little.

Clinton’s victories in Ohio, Florida, Illinois and North Carolina put her firmly on course to defeat her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. As the results were announced on Tuesday evening, she took the stage before a boisterous crowd of supporters here and seemed to pivot towards the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, who also won in Florida.

“We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November!” Clinton declared.

No polling versus reality shockers to be had on this night.

It looked as if Sanders might prove the Clinton campaign’s bullish prediction wrong after he won a stunning upset in Michigan on March 8, but Clinton’s victories on Tuesday helped her stop Sanders’ momentum and establish a seemingly unbeatable lead.

Though Clinton was expected to win the primaries in North Carolina and Florida on Tuesday, polls showed her potentially losing in Ohio, Arizona, Missouri and Illinois. Even if Sanders had won all of the states that were in play on Tuesday, he would still have faced an uphill battle. However, by taking Ohio and Illinois, Clinton definitively pulled ahead.

Elsewhere, the mood was more that of a wake.

Sanders took the stage shortly after Clinton’s appearance in Florida and addressed more than 7,000 of his cheering supporters in a convention center in Phoenix with his usual stump speech. The 74-year-old senator mentioned raising the minimum wage, getting money out of politics, fixing free trade deals and reforming the criminal justice system, among other typical stump-speech issues.

What Sanders didn’t mention were the five states that voted in the Democratic primaries Tuesday night, and what the results meant for his viability as a candidate. This was in contrast to Sanders’ election night appearance on Super Tuesday, when he explicitly downplayed his mixed showing and reassured his supporters he would take the fight to “every” state. In contrast with most election night gatherings, there were no TVs showing primary results in Phoenix, so Sanders’ supporters were not shown Clinton’s wins racking up in the background as the evening progressed. Arizona’s Democrats vote next Tuesday, and Sanders is expected to do well in the state.

Thanks again, corporate media.

No major cable network carried his speech, which coincided with Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s remarks and later, as Sanders continued speaking, with Donald Trump’s victory speech.

So we wait a bit longer for Team Sanders to wake up and smell the coffee, bust a move, and instruct his support network which way to go.  If you know any Sanders people, you already know that they're considering all options.  Since so many of them aren't Democrats -- like Sanders himself, allegedly -- we should expect to see wholesale defections among the blue ranks as Clinton turns her battleship to the right and steams ahead for the fall.  And there ought to be plenty of Republicans for them to recruit.

That's the only interesting storyline left to unfold (as far as I'm concerned): post-Sanders, how do the Democrats plan, go, and do in the general.  They may have been gifted with another Goldwater ... or perhaps will deliver us the nation's worst nightmare.  There's a bitter pill the #NeverTrumps have to swallow.  Will they?

Some Democrats say it's just like 2008 and  Hillary's PUMAs: everybody will get over their upset and fall in line, get onboard.  Eventually.  By November.

I'll just be glad to get to blogging about some things beside the presidentials every day after the past two months.