Hero Mitch McConnell Says Senate Not Gonna Bother Doing Its Job Anymore, Take That, Obama

There's an ugly rumor going around that the United States Senate of America has a job to do, besides sending love letters to our enemies and celebrating craft beer. According to the Constitution -- or maybe the Bible, we always get those two confused -- the Senate is supposed to review presidential nominees for the federal judiciary, hold some hearings, and then vote "YAY, go do some judging, Your Honor," or "Hells nope, you are a terrible racist piece of scum, go away, JEFF SESSIONS, or just become Alabama's next senator, we guess."

The Senate hasn't been very good about doing its job, but now brave grown-up "I'll show you what real leadership looks like" Mitch McConnell has said he's not even going to pretend anymore:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that he doesn't expect to confirm any of Obama's circuit court nominees for the remainder of his time in office, a blow to White House efforts to fill empty federal court seats despite working with a Republican-controlled Senate.

McConnell explained that he's just not interested in Obama's nominees, during a radio interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt. McConnell was patting himself on the back for how freakin' AWESOME everything's been since he became majority leader.

"The Senate is certainly functioning again," he said, after rattling off some of his "accomplishments," like holding votes on bills, which is what the Senate is supposed to do. When Harry Reid was majority leader, McConnell was always getting in the way and preventing the Senate from, like, doing stuff. Reid isn't quite the obstructionist dickface McConnell is, though, so yeah, some things are getting done now, thanks mostly to cooperative Democrats. But sure, Mitch, you take credit for that, uh huh.

Wish we could tell you that this is standard operating procedure for the Senate, where the opposition party refuses to let the president have his precious nominees, because partisan politics is so much more important than a functioning government. Actually, no we don't, because that's a terrible way to run things. At least it wouldn't be personal, though, about a certain specific president who happens to be in the White House right now. But we'd be lying, and you'd know it:

Republicans have only confirmed four district court nominees and no circuit court nominees.

For some context: President George W. Bush had to work with a Democratic Senate in his final two years in office. By this point in Bush's seventh year, the Senate had confirmed 15 of his district court nominees and three circuit court nominees.

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This is the same GOP leadership that refused to hold a vote to confirm Loretta Lynch for attorney general, for months and MONTHS, even after most of them said, "Yeah, she's cool, we guess." Because waaaaaaaah, Obama was still president and Democrats didn't resign en masse so Republicans could control the whole damned universe.

Guess it's standard operating procedure for Republicans, anyway. Because they are terrible at governing and would rather stick out their tongues at Obama than fulfill their constitutional duty of advice and consent on the president's nominees. Same old, same old. And yeah, we'll take that craft beer now, thanks.

[ HuffPo ]