What a difference a couple years makes. Good catch, @BiasedGirl. cc: @notaxation #NuclearOption pic.twitter.com/qEmjDWJsV4
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) April 6, 2017
David Freddoso:
There is obviously no standard for honesty when it comes to political party fundraising emails, but this one I got from DNC Chairman Tom Perez today — on Republicans using the so-called “nuclear option” to push through Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination — really makes me laugh.
Senate Republicans just went nuclear. And the American people are their collateral damage.
When the Senate gaveled in this morning, Neil Gorsuch did not have the 60 votes needed to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. But rather than changing the candidate and finding someone worthy to sit on the Court — someone who isn’t indebted to corporations or billionaire backers, someone who believes in protecting the rights of workers, women, and LGBT people — they decided to invoke the “nuclear option” and confirm him to a lifetime appointment on a 51-vote Republican majority.
If you’re asking yourself “can they really do that?” — the answer is yes, they can and they just did.
Frankly, I’ve had enough of Republicans abusing the power of their majority — so let’s throw them out.
So now the nuclear option is an abuse of power.
Obviously, this kind of ridiculous rhetoric is par for the course in Washington and nothing remarkable, especially in a fundraising email. But the galling thing is not that Democrats created the nuclear precedent in 2013 when they used it to ram through other executive branch and lower-court nominees. No, no, that’s ancient history.
What’s galling is that just a few months ago, on Oct. 28, 2016, the Democrats’ nominee for the vice presidency promised to do exactly what the Republicans just did. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said that when he became Vice President and Democrats retook the Senate in the election that was just a few days away, Democrats would use the nuclear option to ram through Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominee.