ABOVE: Attitude is on the money with its Bridgerton cover.

BELOW: Alexander Wang #MeTooed, Dawn Wells of Gilligan's Island and Shabba-Doo have died unexpectedly, Republican COVID-teasers get what they deserve and more ...

This is what you call gloating — an anti-marriage equality professor with his “handmaiden.” (Image via Twitter)

I've always understood that the Republicans were merely sticking with Trump to use him, and that there is no love lost between them in many cases. However, I used to be surprised they had not abandoned him sooner. Like, why not dump him early in 2020 and try to save their jobs? But now it's clear — the ideological ones knew that there was always a good chance of a third, generation-impacting SCOTUS seat. And now, they have it. Amy Coney Barrett was rammed through, was approved less than eight days before the national election, and that is that. She is wildly anti-reproductive freedom, anti-LGBTQ, anti-voting rights, anti-ACA, and we all know it. And she is about to show it.

Why Expanding the SCOTUS Is a Good Idea — HERE

Now, we are going to have to look very seriously at expanding the Supreme Court. It's not a snap-our-fingers prospect, but has been done and is both constitutional and only fair. We will also have our work cut out for us legislatively. If the Court invalidates same-sex marriages and eliminates the constitutional right to abortion, kicking it to the states is not good enough. We will have to fight on every level to preserve people's rights. Which sounds ... exhausting.

But let's remember: Anything can happen. (This goes both ways. Like, Thomas could retire now and they could get a fourth Trump justice by January. Or Trump could win, which is unlikely, and they could get a fourth, fifth and sixth. Or, on the other hand, Biden could win and Amy Coney Barrett or any other justice could drop dead; we simply do not know what the future brings.) Anything can happen, but the wind is at our backs in every other regard; let's make sure Biden/Harris, with the mandate I hope they will have in a week, will take full advantage of it.

ABOVE: Tightie-whities forever!

BELOW: Keep reading for Tom Daley's homemade junk-trunks, Trump's threat to abandon the U.S., Dianne Feinstein's decline-stein and more ...

SHE READY pic.twitter.com/zLWQbSMljH

— Meena Harris (@meenaharris) October 15, 2020

ABOVE: She “ain't goin' to play with these hos” is Lincoln Project material.

BELOW: Keep reading for the queer candidates fighting for our rights, more Biden polling bonanzas (not to mention a record-breaking cash haul), Kamala on the fly and more ...

ABOVE: I've got his back.

BELOW: Keep reading for Ripp Baker, the Trump family COVID-19 super spreaders, Pelosi's 25th Amendment mind-fuck and more ...

ABOVE: Having an art-on.

BELOW: Keep reading for lovely Jacob Elordi, the inevitability of Amy Coney Barrett, Biden killing it in polls with less than 40 days to go, more Republicans peeling off for Joe, Charles Barkley taken to the woodshed and more ...

... to vote out every GOPer currently in office? (GIF via GIPHY)

Via Huff Post: Mitt Romney wanted to remind us he's trash — an anti-abortion Mormon first and a Never Trumper second, he has announced he is only too happy to vote on a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election, rushing a confirmation in an election year.

I don't think this plays well for Republicans, strategically, but I am guessing the thinking is this:

EXTRATV: RIP Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a truly trailblazing, honorable American.

MEDIUM: President Obama remembers Justice Ginsburg.

NYT: Do NOT give up hope. Ginsburg's death is a catastrophe, but Democrats raised $12.5 million for Senate candidates via ActBlue in the two hours following her death. We must win.

NBC NEWS: Hundreds gathered outside the SCOTUS to mourn the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." pic.twitter.com/quD1K5j9pz

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) September 19, 2020

TWITTER: Lindsey Graham has made it explicitly clear that he is against confirming a SCOTUS judge in the final year of any presidency. He said this:

I want you to use my words against me: If there is a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, “Lindsey Graham said, 'Let's let the next president — whoever it might be — make that nomination,'” and you could use my words against me and you'd be absolutely right.

AXIOS: There is 100% chance that Trump will nominate Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg. He ghoulishly told people privately last year that he was “saving” her among his picks to replace Ginsburg. Barrett is in the mold of Scalia, a so-called originalist, and is adamantly anti-abortion, so Trump correctly intuited how grotesquely satisfying it would be for him to erase Ginsburg's legacy — as he nearly has Obama's — with such a pick.

Sign HERE to Protest Seating of a New Justice Prior to Inauguration Day!

POLITICO: Trump/McConnell could intentionally delay the confirmation of any justice until post-Election Day, but will install one prior to Inauguration Day (if Biden wins). By nominating someone now, Trump will tell his depressed base that he is the guy to trust when it comes to putting anti-abortion justices on the Court, but by forestalling a confirmation, he would dangle that carrot until after November 3, winning him the maximum number of votes possible.

Donate to McConnell's opponent Amy McGrath HERE.

Of course, there are other strategies. Please investigate this thread on Twitter, which suggests more competitive races than McConnell's, and explains why — although it was satisfying for me to give Amy money — the money, if you have limited resources, could be better spent elsewhere.

BREAKING: A high-level Romney insider tells me Mitt Romney has committed to not confirming a Supreme Court nominee until after Inauguration Day 2021. #Mittrevenge #utpol

— Jim Dabakis (@JimDabakis) September 19, 2020

TPM: Ginsburg's death will be immediately (as in, prior to any replacement) impactful on the Court, and may have just sealed the fate of the entire ACA.

This. Forever. (Image via Twitter)

MOTHER JONES: There is a rising appetite among Democrats for a Democratic-controlled (fingers crossed) Senate to add justices to the SCOTUS in order to even out the injustice visited upon the Court by Trump's stolen Kavanaugh seat and now his planned Ginsburg hypocrisy. I'm all in. I wouldn't just add two, either.

I will never understand anti-choicers. Never. (Image via Twitter)

DAILY KOS: We slide ever more dangerously toward autocracy: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an independent federal board, is shelving its investigation into how to protect minority voting rights after its four conservative members voted to abandon it. Forty-something days before the most important election in U.S. history.

TWITTER: Doug Collins, running for the Senate from Georgia, gloated over Ginsburg's death on Twitter, instead mourning aborted fetuses.

Donate to Collins's (and Loeffler's) Democratic opponent HERE.

Donate to Georgia Senate candidate Jon Ossoff (vs. Perdue) HERE.

KANSAS CITY: The Senate race in Kansas is far more competitive than it should be, considering the state is deep red. The race is closer than any in almost 50 years there. Democrat Barbara Bollier is behind Republican Roger Marshall — but according to FiveThirtyEight, she is not out of the running. In a blue-wave election, she could prevail:

FiveThirtyEight’s “lite” forecast — which only uses polling data — gives Bollier a 33% chance of winning. Meanwhile, the “classic” version — fundraising and a state’s partisan lean along with polls — puts Bollier’s odds at 28%.

Donate to Bollier HERE.

Click here to join. (Image via Dr. Barbara Bollier for U.S. Senate)