11:15 -- I'm not going to cover the Amy Coney Barrett hearings too much, because I don't hate myself enough to essentially subject myself to repeated blows to the stomach while some asshole is holding my hands behind my back. This, however, is a good statement. It's completely f**king useless, but it's a good statement.

Amy Klobuchar says the American people are the only thing that can alter Barrett's hearings: "It is you calling Republican senators and telling them enough is enough, telling them it is personal, telling them they have their priorities wrong. So do it" https://t.co/uScvfX9o80 pic.twitter.com/O2yTFqMocy

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 12, 2020

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Meanwhile, to the point we were making below about Democrats taking back power and changing the rules to benefit us, there is hope in November that not only will Biden win, but that Democrats will take back a lot of State Houses in states we never expected to do so two years ago, like Iowa, Florida, Arizona, and ... Texas! It is not out of the question. And if we can turn Texas blue (or even a dark purple), the Republicans would have to change the Electoral College to exclude all the big states in order to win another national election.

9:30 -- There's a couple of clips that went viral in the last few days that I want to return to real quick. Here's Pete Buttigieg after the VP debate last week dunking on the President on Fox News.

I love this. @PeteButtigieg is absolutely sensational here on Fox News. Love it. Love him x pic.twitter.com/oHm4U77aMc

— James Corden (@JKCorden) October 8, 2020

Meanwhile, here's Mitch McConnell on Sean Hannity. If you haven't seen it yet, take your blood-pressure medication first.

Mitch McConnell says the quiet part loud here

pic.twitter.com/O9qG4WRm2o

— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) October 11, 2020

How much did that make your skin crawl? But let me tell you something that you already know: Republicans (and Republican voters) sinister-laughed right along with McConnell. Meanwhile, while I enjoyed the hell out of Pete Buttigieg eliciting stunned silence out of the Fox News anchor, I guarandamntee that most people on the right were saying, "That smarmy little f**k."

And let's take a minute to appreciate that, in some ways, Pete Buttigieg is a smarmy little f**k, but he's our smarmy little f**k, and if you are upset about Pete Buttigieg's political position, don't worry about it. Buttigieg's politics are like that joke about the weather in New England, "Just wait five minutes." Pete Buttigieg began the Democratic primaries way out on the left with Bernie and Elizabeth, but by the end, he'd run to the center so fast that he'd practically become a Republican. Pete's an opportunist. Pete will do anything to win. Pete would throw Chasten over a bridge and under a bus and then back over him again to win. He has ambition where his soul should be. We need more of that.

He's not my favorite kind of politician -- I prefer the Obama hope-and-change variety -- but he's an effective one, and one that I am starting to appreciate we may need a lot more of. Pete will pull out your bowels and smile at you while calmly explaining how much weight you're going to lose without those bowels. Pete Buttigieg is a Twitter politician: He can "dunk" and "torch" and "destroy," and he can do it all with a warm smile on his face.

Pete, or someone like him, could be our Mitch McConnell. And make no mistake: Mitch McConnell is the evilest man alive (refer, again, to that demonic laugh above). But he is wildly effective. He's about to put the third conservative justice on the Supreme Court's bench in three years, and he's on the cusp of overturning Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court decision the majority of the country supports and has supported for decades.

Democrats are really good at winning the popular vote. We've done it in six out of the last seven elections, and yet, it's the Republicans who are about to have a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. It's because we are really good at playing by the rules, and the Republicans are really good at changing those rules. Mitch McConnell is about to ensure minority rule on the highest court in the land for a generation. But hey! We are running the tables on moral victories.

The only way to offset the Supreme Court over the next 20 goddamn years is to take back Congress, hold it, and change all the goddamn rules to benefit the majority (pack. the. f**king. court). We can still run hope-and-change folks at the top of the ticket, but we need our own Mitch McConnell to run things behind the scenes. I don't know if it's Pete Buttigieg, but it needs to be someone like Buttigieg, who will put the interests of the party -- which, again, is supported by the majority of Americans -- ahead of everything else, and if that means throwing a Dianne Feinstein or a Michael Bennet to the wolves, then that's what we fucking do. Pete Buttigieg is a shameless, pandering, and hypocritical. We need a few more like him because right now the GOP has cornered the market on that brand of politician.

In the meantime, if Biden has any sense at all, he'll make Buttigieg his Press Secretary. Put that smarmy arrogance to work for the American people!