Jim Hightower: Why Should You and I Have to Keep Paying Mitch McConnell's Salary? @alternet:
"What a silly old squirrel McConnell is! Article II of the U.S. Constitution plainly states that the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the Supreme Court." Note that the Constitution says the president "shall" do this -- as a duty to the nation. Nothing in the founding document suggests that this power and duty is voided in an election year. In fact, 13 Supreme Court nominations have been made in presidential election years, and the Senate took action on 11 of them. McConnell's assertion is bogus (and silly), for history and the Constitution clearly back Obama. Ironically, one who would have nailed McConnell for such a slapstick political perversion of plain constitutional language is Scalia himself. He practiced what he called "originalism" in his official judgments, insisting that the Constitution must be interpreted only by the words in it and only by the original meaning those words had for the founders when they wrote them into the document. McConnell's squirrelly stall tactic is as ridiculous as it is shameful. It's also totally hypocritical, since Mitch himself voted in February 1988 to confirm a Supreme Court nominee put forth by Ronald Reagan -- in the last year of his presidency. This leads me to ask, why should you and I have to keep paying McConnell's salary? Not only is he a Senate majority leader who doesn't lead; the lazy right-wing lawmaker really doesn't do anything, refusing to pick up the legislative tools he's been given and go to work on the many things that We The People -- and America itself -- need Congress to do. Imagine if you tried doing nothing on your job -- just drawing your paycheck after ignoring your workload! Repeatedly, this senatorial slug says no to every task at hand."
