McConnell Says He'd Fill a SCOTUS Vacancy Next Year

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell led the obstructionism blocking the judicial appointments, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, in the last year of President Barack Obama's second term.

He justified the move with a transparently mendacious argument about how it wasn't respectful of voters to allow an outgoing president to make lifetime appointments, but the truth was that McConnell just wanted to hold open as many federal judgeships as possible in the hopes that an incoming Republican president and a retained Republican Senate majority would allow him to stack the judiciary with conservative jurists.

And that is precisely what has happened. Obama left office with over 100 federal judicial vacancies and an empty Supreme Court seat, every one of which carries with it a lifetime appointment. Which McConnell, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and the Republican Senate majority are now filling as quickly as possible with young conservative judges who will spend their entire careers enabling and abetting Republican rule.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Naturally, when McConnell was asked yesterday what he would do if there were a Supreme Court vacancy next year, in the final year of Trump's term, he readily conceded he would not play by the same rules.

Speaking at a Paducah Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Kentucky, McConnell was asked by an attendee, "Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?"

The leader took a long sip of what appeared to be iced tea before announcing with a smile, "Oh, we'd fill it," triggering loud laughter from the audience.

McConnell went on to brag about how stacking the judiciary is the best and most important thing he's done: "What can't be undone is a lifetime appointment to a young man or woman who believes in the quaint notion that the job of the judge is to follow the law. That's the most important thing we've done in the country, which cannot be undone."

McConnell is one of the most despicable people ever to hold office in this nation's history. He boasts about rigging the game to consolidate and retain power, and then pretends he's doing it out of respect for the democratic process. Utterly reprehensible.

And what's important to understand is that McConnell is not merely a "hypocrite," as you will undoubtedly see him called a million times today. He is a strategic, conniving, shameless authoritarian for whom the asymmetry of the rules is the point.

That's why he's announcing it (with zero fear of consequence, I might add). He wants us to know about the double-standard. He wants to appall us with it.

It's a brazen flex.

McConnell just doesn't want to win. He wants to rub our noses in it. He wants us to know he cheated his way to victory. He wants to gloat about his domination.

He isn't confessing hypocrisy. He's doing a touchdown dance.