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It's Monday, June 27 and Day 135 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell laid down his Supreme Court blockade: No meetings, no hearings, no votes on his replacement. It's also Day 98 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. What's the Senate doing today instead of considering the Supreme Court nominee? 

Well, lookie here, a confirmation vote this evening because it's Monday—so we've got a 3 PM ET start time. The nominee in question is Omaha attorney Robert Rossiter Jr., for the federal bench in Nebraska. He's only been waiting one year and 15 days for this vote. Nothing else is scheduled for today, but the Senate's got a big, short week ahead.

All the senators are going to be champing at the bit to get out Thursday and start a long holiday weekend. But before they do that, they have to deal with the bill Paul Ryan shoved through in the House when trying to break the Democrats' gun safety sit-in. You remember that, the one poisoned with cuts to healthcare programs, relaxed pesticide rules, and punishment of Planned Parenthood, all masquerading as Zika funding? It will almost certainly be blocked by Democrats in the Senate. 

Additionally, they are faced with a very tight deadline—July 1—for helping Puerto Rico avoid defaulting on a $2 billion debt payment. Its prospects are unclear, because the House version of the bill doesn't meet the transparency Senate Democrats want to see, and cuts Puerto Rico's own decision-makers out of a federal oversight board created by the House legislation. 

What we're certainly not going to see today or this week is any movement on Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination.

Please donate $3 today to help turn the Senate blue. The future of the Supreme Court depends on it.

Anti-Trump Republicans are frantically trying to mount one last effort to derail Trump’s nomination next month in Cleveland, although their hopes seem faint. But during a Sunday conference call, they described how very just their cause is:

Steve Deace, a conservative Iowa radio host who joined the call, compared the moment to the Founding Fathers’ rejection of King George III.

“Everybody on this call ... is now in a position similar to theirs,” he said. “You may face the wrath of party bosses. That’s nothing like facing the wrath of a king.”

We are like the Founding Fathers! Except facing the wrath of a Reince Priebus rather than a king. What’s particularly sad (in a smallest violin in the world sense) for the anti-Trumpists is that their efforts may end up being the thing that really unifies the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee:

For its part, the committee is leaving little to chance as it works closely with the Trump campaign in plotting the mechanics of the convention. The two have hired about a dozen operatives to ensure that the nominating vote goes off without a hitch. Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, has dispatched associates to reach out to first-time delegates.

And lawyers for the committee are advising state party leaders how to beat back the anti-Trump efforts, prompting party chairs from Minnesota to Washington State to issue admonitions to delegates who may be thinking of breaking their obligation to vote for Mr. Trump.

“About a dozen operatives” just to get votes from delegates Trump already won? What a great use of resources when the Trump campaign is dramatically understaffed for the purposes of getting votes in November! Seriously, when you’re dedicating more staff to the convention that’s supposed to be mostly stagecraft than to major swing states, you are in some trouble. 

It’s been a good week for those of us expecting a better elections result on this side of the pond. 

The current trends give Hillary Clinton a 7.3-point lead over the tiny-fingered, cheeto-faced, ferret-wearing shitgibbon (thanks Scotland, for that one!). Remember: In 2008, President Obama’s landslide victory over John McCain was 7.2 points. And the numbers haven’t stopped shifting on this one either, since we’re still waiting for some Bernie Sanders supporters to come home. And Trump sure hasn’t stopped screwing the pooch. 

Driving these numbers are Clinton leads in pretty much every poll: ABC/Post +12, NBC/WSJ +5, Ipsos/Reuters +10, Rasmussen (crap) +5, ARG +9. About the only halfway positive results for Trump are Morning Consult, which only have Clinton at +2. But even that one has Trump stuck at 40 and look at that! None of the polls listed above have him at over 41. It’s quite similar to Mitt Romney in 2012, also stuck in the low 40s for most of the campaign season. 

As you can see from the graph above, Clinton’s post-primary bounce has yet to stall while Trump is headed south. And his performance in Scotland in the wake of the Brexit vote won’t make things any better for him. 

Sure, Sanders voters are quickly moving their support to Hillary now that the primaries are over. But plans are afoot—afoot, I say!—to keep Democrats from uniting around Hillary Clinton.

Even if you’ve become convinced that Clinton herself is not as bad as 30 years of bought-and-paid-for television, radio, and print attacks might suggest, Republicans have a scheme to show you that she’s not for you. And it’s not a basement full of psychics hired from 1-900 lines to plant negative Hillary thoughts in your dreams (okay, it’s not just a basement full of psychics). 

It’s …. Project Pander.

In a detailed memo outlining its strategy to combat Clinton’s VP choice, the committee says it will frame the selection as both a cynical play to certain constituencies and as an emotional letdown for voters who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primary.

No matter who Clinton picks for veep, the Project Pander team will use that choice to prove that Clinton has back-stabbed, front-stabbed, ignored, or paid too much attention to some faction of Democrats. 

The goals, the memo says, are to “drive wedges between these top contenders and either Clinton and/or traditional Democrat constituencies, such as labor, environmentalists, and gun control advocates, and other traditional left-wing constituencies;” and “[w]here applicable, frame the choice as an insult to the large, deep base of Bernie Sanders supporters who are struggling with the notion of supporting Hillary Clinton as the presumptive Democrat nominee.”

She didn’t pick Bernie? Slap in the face to Bernie supporters! She picked Bernie? It’s because she’s in the pocket of gun manufacturers! Kaine’s a career politician. Wait … do Democrats hate those? We think so! Castro is named Castro! Elizabeth Warren is … Elizabeth Warren is … She’s too good and people like her too much!

In a decisive 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down the strict abortion laws in Texas which have caused more than half of the state's abortion clinics to close. Texas had imposed onerous requirements on abortion clinics, requiring that doctors who perform abortions maintain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and that all abortions be performed in hospital-like surgical centers. The majority (consisting of Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan) decided the restrictions create an unconstitutional burden on women seeking to end their pregnancies.

Writing the majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer made clear what an "undue burden" looks like:

[A]s the admitting-privileges requirement began to be enforced, the number of facilities providing abortions dropped in half, from about 40 to about 20; this decrease in geographical distribution means that the number of women of reproductive age living more than 50 miles from a clinic has doubled, the number living more than 100 miles away has increased by 150%, the number living more than 150 miles away by more than 350%, and the number living more than 200 miles away by about 2,800%; the number of facilities would drop to seven or eight if the surgical-center provision took effect, and those remaining facilities would see a significant increase in patient traffic; facilities would remain only in five metropolitan areas; before H. B. 2's passage, abortion was an extremely safe procedure with very low rates of complications and virtually no deaths; it was also safer than many more common procedures not subject to the same level of regulation; and the cost of compliance with the surgical-center requirement would most likely exceed $1.5 million to $3 million per clinic.

"Common sense,” he writes, “also suggests that a physical facility that satisfies a certain physical demand will generally be unable to meet five times that demand without expanding physically or otherwise incurring significant costs."

In what’s being seen as a vice presidential audition, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is campaigning with Hillary Clinton in Cincinnati, Ohio, Monday morning. But whatever happens with the vice presidential speculation, Warren is a powerful voice for Democratic principles and against Donald Trump, and a valuable presence on the campaign trail. The plan is that:

Clinton and Warren will discuss their shared commitment to building an America that is stronger together and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. 

In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Texas law on abortion violates the Constitution and places an undue burden on the right to an abortion. Justice Breyer writes the opinion, which says in essence:

Both the admitting privileges and surgical center requirements place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, constitute an undue burden on abortion access, and thus violate the Constitution.

It’s been a full year since Donald Trump announced his extremely normal candidacy. He’s said and done so many extremely normal things since then, it’s hard to keep track of them all — so I thought it might be a good moment for a brief look back at the sheer normality of it all. Obviously I’m only scratching the surface, though — sad!

Leading Off:

● Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff: Former Phoenix police Sgt. Paul Penzone is waging a rematch against notorious Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio after losing by a surprisingly close 51-45 margin four years ago, by far the worst showing of Arpaio's decades-long career. Now Penzone has released an internal poll from Strategies 360 that has the challenger leading the incumbent by a 48-44 spread, which KPNX's Brahm Resnick says "might be the first time any candidate has topped Arpaio in a public opinion survey in recent memory."

Penzone's poll also asked about Arizona's presidential and Senate races within the confines of Maricopa, the state's largest county and home of almost 60 percent of its population. Maricopa tends to vote similarly to the state as a whole, so Donald Trump's 44-39 lead on Hillary Clinton and GOP Sen. John McCain's 50-35 advantage on Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick suggest that this poll is by no means too favorable too Democrats. If anything, the opposite is true, as the Huffington Post Pollster average has Clinton ahead 42-40 statewide.

Arpaio's response is also telling. His campaign manager declared that Penzone's poll was "completely fabricated" and "phony," claiming that Arpaio "ha[s] internals that tell a much, much different story." But you know what we're going to tell you next: At no point did this staffer actually provide any details on those supposed internal polls. If you're going to question someone's numbers, you have to provide contradictory data of your own. Otherwise, you're the one who winds up looking like the phony.

Jury duty time! And I’ll be doing the show live from the courtroom! You’ll get all the inside scoop on what’s going on during the trial!

Just kidding. That’d be totally illegal or something. No, the good news is that I’m off the hook, and they don’t need jurors this week. Hooray for us! Keep up the good work not doing any crimes, people! Either that, or keep up the good work scheduling your summer vacations, attorneys and judges!

Whatever it was, I’m glad, because now we get to talk about the terrible things people are still doing elsewhere in the world. Like buying golf courses, having ridiculous hair and cheering for economic meltdown because yargle bargle, something, something, elites.

And by the way, if you thought the Brexit chaos was a great warning for our own Trump situation, let’s not forget that “regular” Republicans were threatening default on the U.S. federal debt long before Hairspray von Clownstick took over. The insanity doesn’t begin or end with this dumbass.

Just saying. Next, we’ll see what else I end up saying.

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I thought so!

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David Waldman and KITM wrestle international finance and politics today!  David tag-teams with Greg Dworkin and Arliss Bunny from Hopping Mad with Will McLeod and Arliss Bunny: Who wanted to leave the EU?  The UK?  The UN? Who gets to be the rump state? What happens now? Are we screwed? Bernie Sanders doesn't wait until the super delegates vote to rig it all for Hillary Clinton. Trump clownsticks in Scotland. A reporter fact checks Donald Trump's claim that he gave 'millions' to charity. Is Trump’s Campaign breaking the law by paying money to Trump’s businesses? You can’t expect Donald Trump to remember everything. Guns change the way you think, our brains react to guns in much the same way they react to spiders and snakes.  Trolls threaten the life of an anti-Trump tweeter. This weekend, find a nice shady spot and read this Mother Jones investigation of four months in the life of a private prison guard.

So This Happened Yesterday

History. The first presidential nominee of a major party to march in an LGBT pride parade:

Though to be honest I can’t believe that Donald Trump didn’t do it first. After all, no one loves “the LBGT” as much as he does. (Uh huh.) Oh, and Barney Frank reminded me yesterday that Hillary is also the first First Lady to march in an LGBT pride parade, also in NYC:

How ‘bout them apples.

P.S. More pics in Scan’s post.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

“Bregrets” is how some wags are labeling what a few interviewed Britons who voted to separate Britain from the European Union last week are feeling. The petition effort to hold another vote before the divorce is finalized is moving ahead rapidly. But whether or not that will happen, the stunned view among a considerable slice of elite opinion is that much irreparable damage has already been done. That may be so. But what’s certain is there will be boatloads of decrying and defaming of culprits real and fabricated in the months to come even if a second vote reverses the first. Even if a Round 2 vote keeps Britain in the EU, can anyone believe that the status quo ante is a realistic objective?

The Guardian’s editorial board assesses one bit of fall-out:

A country in peril, without a functioning government, needs an office-ready opposition – to ask the awkward questions, warn against wild swerves, and force somebody on the government side to explain what is going on. Britain, however, is saddled with a second party so beset by schisms, that – even as the union strains, the government crumbles, and the economy teeters – the thing making the headlines is Labour’s disintegration. Hilary Benn’s “sacking”, a dubious description seeing as the shadow foreign secretary constructed his own dismissal, was followed by the self-sacrifice of no fewer than 11 shadow cabinet ministers by late evening on 26 June, a run of career suicide bombs all detonated with the single aim of forcing Jeremy Corbyn out, just nine months after the leftwinger secured an almighty mandate from party members, taking more than thrice the votes of any of his three rivals, from the party’s centre and right.

This is a dismal pass that Labour was always likely to reach, because the overwhelming bulk of MPs have, from the off, been convinced that Mr Corbyn would drive them off a cliff. Many members are understandably furious with parliamentarians who never allowed him a chance. But there is no escaping that the day-to-day work of a party leader is fronting the efforts of a team of MPs. And when he was initially backed by fewer than one in 10 of that team, and not much interested in compromises to win more over, it was a job he was always going to struggle to do effectively. After the attempted coup, Mr Corbyn may attempt to fill his top team with other MPs. But there is now a real question about whether he can function in the job at all.