So, what was weak this week?

GOP Refuses To Even Consider Obama’s Nomination For Scalia’s Replacement

Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. the reason the phrase “Politics is show business for ugly people” was coined, said his GOP Senate would not consider any nominee of President Obama’s to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Scalia. McConnell claimed that the American people needed to weigh in on this decision through the 2016 Presidential Election. Of course, it could be argued that they already did weigh in with the results of the 2012 election. If voters had wanted the GOP to pick Supreme Court nominees for the years 2013-2017, I’d be ruthlessly making fun of President Romney. (Unless he’d repealed the Affordable Care Act, in which case I wouldn’t have gotten therapy for my depression and would be either too apathetic or too dead to care by now.)

It’s a strange position to take–that we should put off decisions circumstances force on us today by waiting for another election. But why should that election decide anything? Couldn’t the GOP, if not wholly satisfied, just say. Wait…um…you know what? We didn’t mean the 2016 election. We meant 2018. Or 2020. And that should apply to all decisions. After all, are we so arrogant as to think we’re smarter than the us’s of the not too distant future? Let’s put off the budget and medical research and foreign policy and trade.

Government would grind to a halt. But they’re the GOP. They don’t mind that.

Onward.

Donald Trump Suggests Scalia Was the Victim of A Conspiracy

On the Michael Savage show–yes, that lunatic still has a show–Donald Trump raised doubts about what was pretty clearly Scalia’s natural and inevitable heart attack.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/247250427″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

I don’t know what else to expect from a political movement that denies climate change and evolution. Apparently their batcrap crazy extends to an inability to believe that septuagenarians with serious cardiovascular conditions are highly likely to die in exactly the way Scalia died.

Young skeptics, this is the shit you’ll be debunking until you join Scalia decades from now. Feel good?

Onward.

Not Only Did Flint’s Water Poison Its Citizens, but Flint Charged Them Twice the Going Rate For Service

The Detroit Free Press has the story:

A Flint lawyer who sued to reduce the rates says they are high in part because city officials and state-appointed emergency managers have tapped water and sewer money for other needs.

“They’ve been using that money improperly for years to fund the general operations of the city,” said Valdemar L. Washington, who has been battling the rate increases in court since 2012. The city’s sewer fund had a balance of $36 million in 2006 but was running a $23 million deficit by 2012, Washington said.

Think about this the next time you’re considering not voting in one of those off-year state or local elections.

Until next week.