By: Michael Hammond (Diary)  |  November 28th, 2013 at 02:02 PM

WHAT IS THE NUCLEAR OPTION?

The nuclear option, which was triggered by Harry Reid last Thursday, is always characterized by the “puppet press,” but never described. And there is good reason for this.

The nuclear option is nothing but an exercise in fraud. A majority of senators stand up and vote for a reading of the Senate rules that is absolutely palpably factually untrue — and that everyone knows is untrue. It is like voting that “black” is “white.” But it is successful because the lie is enforced by absolute brute force.

In this case, 52 Democrats successfully overturned the ruling of the Chair that 60 senators were required to shut down debate on a nomination — even though 60 senators were clearly required to shut down debate on a nomination. Like “you can keep your insurance,” it is the most recent step in the employment of demonstrable, indisputable fraud for the purpose of achieving legislative gains.

You’ll notice the evidence that the perpetrators understand that they are liars and frauds: Originally, the “nuclear option” could, supposedly, only be invoked the first legislative day of Congress. Then, after the first day had passed, only for executive branch nominees. Now it applies to virtually all executive and judicial nominees.

The vote supposedly didn’t apply to Supreme Court nominees or legislation. But once you make fraud the “coin of the realm,” you no longer have the right or ability to say what types of fraud are acceptable and what types are not.

I have been on the personal payrolls of more senators than virtually any other human being, and I don’t particularly have a Pollyannaish view of senatorial honesty. That said, there is a reason that no senator in the institution’s 225-year history has been so corrupt and dishonest that he would ask 51 of his colleagues to stand up and exercise their constitutional function by publicly lying in a way that was recognized as a lie by every viewer.

In the Senate of Mike Mansfield, who was Leader when I came to the Senate, such moral corruption would have been regarded as unthinkable.

And, to make matters worse, once the trigger is pulled, as it now has been, I see no way of putting the bullet back in the barrel.

As far as I’m concerned, the Senate now has no enforceable rules.

This probably means that we have created a permanent situation where laws are passed and repealed, as each party periodically ascends to power. Like water swishing back and forth in a bathtub, laws will be passed by one party, then repealed when the other party wins the presidency, then passed, then repealed, etc.

Currently, this is the process which occurs with executive orders, particularly concerning abortion, where policies like Mexico City are implemented on the first day of the Republican presidency, only to be reversed on the first day of the Democrats.

HOW SLIMY ARE THE NUCLEAR OPTIONISTS?

I worked with PAW’s Ralph Neas — at some risk to myself — to defeat the nuclear option when it was being proposed by Republicans in 2005. Ralph confidently told me that the New York Times would do what was expected of them — and oppose the nuclear option. And the Post dutifully did too. Harry Reid’s opposition — phrased in cataclysmic terms — has been well-documented.

And yet, when the invocation of the “nuclear option,” which the Post, Times, and Reid found morally repugnant in 2005, served to benefit them in 2013, they all reversed their positions on cue. What does this tell you about how intellectually and morally corrupt all of these partisans are?

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

FIRST: Take scalps.

Republicans are idiots if, in the wake of having their testicles crushed twice by Harry Reid, they give Obama the political victory of a budget agreement.

Republicans are also idiots if they allow the cringe-inducing Chuck Schumer to pass his most recent gun control bill. Thursday, Schumer — in the guise of an extension of the ban on “plastic guns” — tried to sneak through a bill which would ban the methods of manufacturing firearms in many parts of America. And he tried to do it without notifying any senator — in a procedure called “hot-lining.” Senators should not allow any extension of this gun control measure to pass without a total repeal of the ObamaCare mandate included.

Finally, Republicans are super-super-idiots if they allow the smallest immigration bill to pass the House for the remainder of the 113th Congress.

SECOND: The political response.

Only a fool would think that this is not a dry run for the next Supreme Court nominee — particularly if “swing vote” Anthony Kennedy dies or retires. If Reid was willing to destroy the Senate as an institution for the sake of the D.C. Circuit, does anyone think he would hesitate for one minute to do the same when the fundamental balance of power on the ultimate prize — the Supreme Court — is at stake? The titular exception for Supreme Court justices will evaporate like ice in the sun.

What does this mean in practice?

The two central Second Amendment cases, Heller (holding that the Second Amendment applied to individuals and not just to the states’ right to raise a militia) and McDonald (holding that the Second amendment applied to the states) were both decided by 5-to-4 margins — with Kennedy casting the deciding vote.

Nothing could be clearer than that, if Kennedy dies tomorrow, both Heller and McDonald will be reversed. The Second Amendment will be read out of the Constitution — by a new virulently anti-gun “swing vote” shoved through under the nuclear option.

Therefore, I intend to make sure that every gun owner in America knows that the Second Amendment is dead unless Harry Reid loses his job before Anthony Kennedy’s heart ceases to beat.

Gun owners in Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire will be told — and told again and again and again — that a vote for any Democrat will be a vote to repeal the Second Amendment.

As a result of this — and as a result of ObamaCare — I expect the Senate will revert to the Republicans in 2014 in a tsunami year.

THIRD: The legislative response:

The first three pieces of legislation introduced by the new Republican Majority Leader in 2014 should be these:

– First, a bill to repeal ObamaCare.

– Second, a bill to repeal Dodd-Frank.

– Third, a resolution to change the Senate rules to specifically allow the Senate, by 51 votes, to pass a resolution which deems that the president’s veto is overridden by a 2/3 margin.

In 2016, Republicans should add to this list a bill to create a new judgeship for every judge added as a result of the Democrats’ court-packing scheme.

One final benefit will come from the decimation of Senate Democrats as a result of their slime scheme: We will never again have to watch the creepy Harry Reid adjust his “grandpa pants” on national television. Like your similarly creepy uncle who enjoys playing “tickle tag” with the kids just a little too much, we’ll breath a lot easier when this weirdo have left the premises.