September 4, 2018

Republicans Who Didn’t Even Hold a Hearing on Merrick Garland Complain Democrats Are Destroying Norms

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Here is Republican Sen. John Cornyn complaining that Democrats have been rude at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

“This is the first confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court justice that I’ve seen basically according to mob rule. We have rules in the senate. We have norms for decorum…it’s hard to take it seriously when every single one of our colleagues on the Democratic side of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced opposition to this nominee even before today’s hearing. So it’s hard to take seriously their claim that somehow they can’t do their job because they have been denied access to attorney client or executive privilege documents.”

The Senate has rules! The Senate has norms! The Democrats have already announced opposition to the nominee! My stars! 

What about this norm?

These cats didn’t even give Merrick Garland a hearing! 

As much as we would all like to take a stroll through Senate Norm Cemetery to mourn “Being Nice,” it’s impossible to get to that particular tomb without tripping over the grave of dearly departed “Holding Hearings At All.”

It’s going to be a long week.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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