Zombie Ronald Reagan Tells Republicans To Do Their Job

• Who doesn't love the smell of Dead Reagan in the morning? Especially when he is trolling Republicans from the great beyond:

  The time is now right to join together in a bipartisan effort to fulfill our constitutional obligation of restoring the United States Supreme Court to full strength.

  That was St. Ronald of Reagan, in the year 1988, which, calendar fact, was a presidential election year. Kind of exactly like this here 2016 presidential election year, except Donald Trump has a different wife now. Back then, as this new ad from MoveOn points out, Mitch McConnell and McConnell-type Republicans were all in favor of doing what Reagan said and filling a Supreme Court vacancy, like the Constitution says RIGHT HERE IN THE CONSTITUTION , because they didn't know that one day in the far-off future, they'd discover a little-known codicil in their buttcracks that says NUH UH. Oh, if only they had a time machine to go back and tell themselves that presidents aren't allowed to nominate Supreme Court justices during their final year in office. Maybe next time.

• Tonight Republicans in Nevada make with the caucus, starting at 5ish PM local time, and it's guaranteed to be a real shit show:  

  

  What could possibly go wrong?

• Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill has cancer. Screw you, cancer:

  I very recently learned that I have breast cancer. It was detected through a regular mammogram. It’s a little scary, but my prognosis is good and I expect a full recovery. I will be in St Louis for the next 3 weeks receiving treatment.

  Here's hoping the senator kicks the crap out of cancer's ass.

• Turns out the vaccine to prevent spreading HPV is really good at doing that:

  Rates of HPV among teenage girls dropped 64 percent after the vaccine was introduced, from 11.5 percent to 4.3 percent, according to a study released today that will be published in the March edition of the journal Pediatrics. Infection dropped among women in their early 20s too, by 34 percent.

  Vaccinate your fucking kids. And vaccinate your kids who might one day be fucking.

• Marco Rubio quite literally cannot win for losing:  

  

• Apparently, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan is as sick and tired of telling the Times why it sucks so much, so she is OUTTA THERE, suckers, and off to hang out with the Washington Post instead:

  Margaret is a superb journalist who has witnessed the dramatic changes in our industry up close through her work at the Times, where she writes a column twice a month and blogs frequently on reader concerns and Times journalism. She has been public editor for three and a half years, longer than all of her predecessors, and has surely been the most digital. As anyone who has been a public editor or ombudsman can attest, it’s a tough job. And she has been fearless in her approach to it.

  She is overflowing with story ideas about the rapidly changing media environment and has a broad mandate to cover media through a variety of formats, everything from a column to blog posts off the news to deeply reported stories.

  We pity whoever steps into the role at the Times of having to apologize to readers -- again -- for Maureen Dowd.

• Our beloved snipy's Bitter Empire has published a thing by Kaleb Horton, and it is a great thing, and you should go read it. Read the hell out of it. It is called A Selection of Tweets From Donald Trump’s First Term As President , and here is just one teeny tiny itty bitty little morsel for you to taste:

  

  
  Now go read the rest. You know you wanna.