Another Mitch Glitch

Some of the wiring in Mitch McConnell's brain has gone a little kerflooey.

I imagine you've already seen the video and heard the reports, but this is the era of piling on, so here it is again. He goes off the air for a good 20 seconds, and then kinda reboots enough to continue.

That death grip on the podium seems a bit metaphorical - McConnell desperately holding on to something he thinks will shield him from the humiliation he continually brings on himself.

About a month ago:

I think the interesting angle here is not just that Mitch is having some really alarming episodes, but that the Democratic governor of Kentucky would appoint a replacement Senator if McConnell can't serve out his term, and the Republican legislature has put through a bill requiring the governor to appoint a replacement of the same party as the departing Senator - from a list of candidates proffered by the Kentucky GOP.

So what if Gov Beshear ignores that requirement, appoints a Democrat, and tests it out in the courts, arguing Separation Of Powers?

That's of particular interest for me because the Republicans have been chipping away at the Checks-n-Balances thing for decades, starting at least as far back as Reagan, with the cockamamie "theory of the unitary executive".

The general principle that the President controls the entire executive branch was originally rather innocuous, but extreme forms of the theory have developed. Former White House Counsel John Dean explains: "In its most extreme form, unitary executive theory can mean that neither Congress nor the federal courts can tell the President what to do or how to do it, particularly regarding national security matters."

According to law professors Lawrence Lessig and Cass Sunstein, "No one denies that in some sense the framers created a unitary executive; the question is in what sense. Let us distinguish between a strong and a weak version." In either its strong or weak form, the theory would limit the power of Congress to divest the President of control of the executive branch. The "strongly unitary" theory posits stricter limits on Congress than the "weakly unitary" theory. During his confirmation hearing to become an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court, Samuel Alito seemed to endorse a weaker version of the unitary executive theory.

Alito's seemingly obvious self-interest in preserving his own power not withstanding (the guy did lie his ass off during his confirmation, dontcha know), the GOP position is largely that the Legislative Branch can't really interfere with the Executive's power to run the government. Which is pretty interesting because the Kentucky legislature is trying to do exactly that.

And that contradiction is just too perfectly on-brand for these asshole Daddy State Republicans.