Quote of the Week...from Mitch McConnell

You'll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.       ---Mitch McConnell

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (from Kentucky) made the above quote back in 2013 just before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat from Nevada) foolishly did away with the 60-vote threshold for confirming non-Supreme Court presidential appointments as a response to perceived Republican obstruction on some of Obama's federal court nominations.  As Majority Leader, McConnell later expanded the "Nuclear Option" in 2017 to encompass Supreme Court nominations as well, in order to allow incoming president Donald Trump's selection, Neil Gorsuch, to be confirmed.  Yet during that presidency, McConnell resisted Trump's pressure and taunts as he refused to eliminate the filibuster for normal legislation...something for which I give him credit amid my many criticisms of his actions as GOP Senate leader.  Now, with Democrat Joe Biden narrowly elected president, the House of Representatives barely holding on to its majority, and the Senate with a 50-50 split and only in the Democrats' control due to there being a Democratic president, many on the political left are pushing to abolish the legislative filibuster with yet another Nuclear Option...are you kidding me?  McConnell's above 2013 quote was true then and it is now.  In the 2014 off-year elections just the following year, the Republicans gained control of the Senate, and only relinquished it early this year...during Trump's single term in office they pushed through Cabinet officers and federal judges by the hundreds...many of them highly controversial...and by dint of McConnell's follow-up action in '17 regarding the SCOTUS, three very, very conservative Supreme Court nominees were confirmed to the high court, none of whom would have ever passed the earlier 60-vote threshold.  Now, on the Democratic side only Senator Joe Manchin (WVA) and possibly Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) stand in the way of abolishing the legislative filibuster.  The way I see it, suppose the Nuclear Option is implemented in the legislative sphere and the Democrats push into law bills that normally wouldn't pass the scrutiny traditionally embedded in Senate consideration: the next time the Republicans are elected into power (and this may be "a lot sooner than you think"), what's then keeping them from going right down the list of Democratic accomplishments and rescinding all of them, after which they pass legislation of their own that runs 180 degrees in the other direction?  Really, is this instability in our elected, representative national government what we want for our future?  The party in power always seems to act as if they think they'll forever be in power.  There's a good chance that the Republicans will retake the House after the 2022 elections...if that happens any subsequent legislation will require the Democrats to work with their counterparts in a highly bipartisan manner and the perceived need to eliminate the Senate's 60-vote minimum will be a moot point.  But if the Republicans can get their act together and reclaim the White House, Senate, and the House after the 2024 elections...something very feasible from my viewpoint...they could find themselves with a big "green light" to jam through anything they want after that, should the legislative filibuster be torpedoed.  Recently McConnell was quoted as saying he was 100% focused on stopping Joe Biden...that open obstructionism will only fuel the push to end the legislative filibuster.  But he had said and done the same when Obama was president, and Harry Reid's response was still very ill-advised...