Ed already covered the new and improved version of Senator Lindsey Graham, who plans to basically “Hulk out” going into the midterms. Graham isn’t wasting any time wading into his new role, either. He showed up on Fox News Sunday, talking to Chris Wallace and the subject of Chuck Schumer’s objections to Brett Kavanaugh came up. Abandoning all pretense of comity with the Senate Minority Leader, Graham pulled out the short list of judges which Donald Trump was picking from when he nominated Kavanaugh and challenged him to come on the show and name a single one that the Democrats wouldn’t have tried to torpedo. (Free Beacon)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) challenged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Sunday to name one person from President Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court justices that he finds acceptable.

“This is a list that was compiled in November, but he actually put it out during the campaign,” Graham told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, as he held up the list. “Twenty something people on this list, asking Chuck Schumer, name five, name three, name one that would be okay with you.”…

Graham added that Kavanaugh is a mainstream judge that any Republican president would have nominated and that Democrats are trying to undo the 2016 election and prevent conservative jurists from being confirmed.

Let’s go to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGyDvk6G02Q

This is a refreshing side of Lindsey Graham to see, particularly compared to his days “gang activity.” (Think Gang of Eight, Gang of Fourteen.) And the point he’s making is a completely valid one. There were Democratic senators lining up to state that they would vote against Kavanaugh on the day he was nominated. For that matter, most of their ardent supporters were waiting around in the streets of Washington with signs saying “Oppose…” with a blank waiting to be filled in when the announcement was made.

There were no judges on that list – each one highly qualified and carrying the conservative seal of approval – who Schumer would have whipped up his caucus to vote for. At this point, Chuck Schumer is acting a lot more like his niece, comedian Amy Schumer, than the Senate Minority Leader. His performance on the Senate floor when he denounced Saturday’s vote as “a low moment for the Senate” could have been given by any Democrat in the building at that point.

At this point, the game has definitely changed, and both parties participated in getting us to this stage. It started when Harry Reid first pulled the trigger on the nuclear option and the Republicans upped the ante by expanding it. (Not that they had much choice by then.) In terms of SCOTUS confirmations, the GOP kicked off the action by not moving forward with Garland’s confirmation, but now the Democrats have made it clear that they’re ready to hold any upcoming Supreme Court vacancy for two years if they get control of the Senate.

Right now, as far as I can tell, we have entered a period where no SCOTUS vacancy will be filled unless the same party holds control of both the White House and the Senate. That will apply to an entire presidency if those conditions aren’t met. If we have divided government between those two slots for too long of a period, there may not be a Supreme Court anymore, after enough of them retire or pass away.

Hoo boy. May you live to see interesting times.