Historically horrible top court fight
PRESIDENT TRUMP, in two Saturday morning wake-up tweets, resorted to namecalling — again — in an attack on NBC News coverage of the ongoing Russian scandal.
The White House gripes came in messages where the President bestowed a snarky nickname on “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd.
“When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?” Trump wrote.
“It is the same Fake News Media that said there is ‘no path to victory for Trump’ that is now pushing the phony Russia story,” read the second tweet. “A total scam!”
Todd responded without mentioning Trump, instead citing Mississippi State’s stunning upset of Connecticut in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament.
“For those wondering, I slept well even tho I stayed up late watching the #msstate upset of UConn. #cowbell,” he tweeted. “Don’t feel sleepy at all though.” THE SENATE is set to vote on Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court this week — marking the conclusion of a nasty year-plus fight that some fear could permanently damage the chamber.
Democrats are guaranteeing a filibuster. Republicans are promising to retaliate by invoking the so-called nuclear option and change long-standing rules requiring a 60-vote threshold to end the filibuster. That would allow Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority.
Senators in both parties are sounding the alarm about the deep wounds that would cause, but neither side sees a way out.
“It’s a severe blow to the institution, the way we do business,” Sen. John McCain (RAriz.) told the Daily News.
McCain is one of many senators who thinks there’s little hope to avoid a meltdown over Gorsuch’s nomination amidst toxic partisan finger-pointing that’s only going to get worse. While he’s in talks with Democrats to try to avoid catastrophe, he said there had been “little or no progress” in discussions.
“It makes me very sad,” McCain said. “I’ve been involved in successful efforts at preventing this. Now I’m failing.” Most Democrats have come out against Gorsuch, warning that he’s a hardcore conservative whose views are well outside the mainstream. Many are still furious over Republicans’ refusal to even hold hearings for Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama’s nominee for the role.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) held the seat open for more than a year after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, and Democrats feel he’s about to steal a lifetime appointment for conservatives.
“What the Republicans did last year was engage in a very radical deviation from American history in not giving Merrick Garland a hearing and then they similarly have nominated someone who is outside the mainstream of historical American jurisprudence. The question is what do the Democrats do, and we just have to make sure that we stand up,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
Republicans say they compromised to reach an agreement to avoid this exact rule change a decade ago and reached a similar one in 2013, only to see Democrats under then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) change the rules on every kind of nominee except Supreme Court justices during the Obama admin-