BERNIE’S HATRED OF WORK IS WHY TRUMPITES ARE SO MAD, Mark Hemingway writes at the Federalist:

Many Portlanders like their lives that don’t contribute much, and if they could just get free health care—the governor who created the failed Oregon Health Plan and screwed up the state’s Obamacare exchange to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars was just run out of office on corruption charges in his fourth term—and erase their absurd college debt, they could afford the harissa-spiced Bloody Marys at the trendy new brunch spot and slide by selling colorful hemp guitar straps on Etsy without having to make any difficult or unselfish choices.

This Portlandia phenomenon isn’t unique to Oregon. You see the same discontent in trendy urban areas across the country in places such as San Francisco, Silver Lake, Brooklyn, and so on.

Speaking of Brooklyn, the location of Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters is more than a little symbolic here. In 2008, when she was still the presumptive favorite and faced with progressive, youthful insurgency, Clinton rallied around defending the Democratic white working class’s bitter clinger constituency. This time around, it’s obvious she’s bound and determined not to make that mistake again and wants to co-opt the enthusiasm of Sanders’s campaign more than repudiate it.

If you’re a gun owner, object to being forced to bake a wedding cake, or a traditionally Democratic voter who still holds same decidedly unprogressive opinions that Clinton herself held five minutes ago, her 2016 campaign is likely to respond to your concerns with blog post festooned with Taylor Swift GIFs explaining why you’re the anti-Christ.

Read the whole thing.

THE HILL: Obama to meet McConnell, Grassley to discuss Supreme Court vacancy.

President Obama will convene a long-anticipated meeting at the White House next Tuesday with top Republican senators to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) will both attend, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.

The spokesman said the meeting was arranged “after a number of conversations, some more awkward than others.”

“Ulimately, the president is going to fulfill his duty and it will be up to the Senate to decide if they’re going to fulfill theirs,” Earnest said of the leaders’ handling of the nomination process.

Well, the Senate can “fulfill its duty” by refusing to vote, of course, as Earnest and Obama (probably) know. And my advice to McConnell and Grassley is to do just that. But if you’re looking for a reasonable “advice and consent” compromise, there’s always this:

I propose that the Senate put together its own list of candidates for each Supreme Court vacancy, and forward that list to the President. This list would constitute the “advice” portion of the Senate’s constitutional role. The President could then do one of two things-she could select a nominee from the list, who would be presumed competent based on the Senate’s earlier screening and would be given approval according to some sort of accelerated procedure (much as in “fast track” trade legislation), or she could select someone not on the list, in which case the confirmation process would take place as usual.

Under this process both sides would be encouraged not to be too political in their selections: if the Senate loaded its list with ideologues, the President would ignore it, forcing the Senate to undergo the traditional confirmation process. On the other hand, the President also would be encouraged to avoid ideologues and give the Senate’s list serious consideration, and to select from it so long as its candidates were reasonable, in order to escape the agonies of the full-blown Senate confirmation process as it has become. Furthermore, if the President did not select from the list, there would be a basis for comparison, as people (and Senators) could decide whether the President’s candidate met the same standards as the members of the Senate’s list.

And the proposal dates back to the first Bush Administration, so nobody can accuse it of current-day partisanship.

RICK PERRY IS NOT GUILTY, BUT TEXAS IS: “The Perry case is an indictment of Texas’s culture of corruption,” Kevin D. Williamson writes.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: Shakespeare Was in the House at the Republican Debate, says the 21st century Bard of Los Angeles, Roger Simon.

GOOSE, MEET GANDER: How Biden killed John Roberts’s nomination in 1992.

In 1992, then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden launched a preemptive attack on any nominee President George H.W. Bush named to the Supreme Court, warning that if Bush tapped someone, Biden’s committee “should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination . . . until after the political campaign season is over.”

While Biden did not get the chance to kill a Supreme Court nomination that year, he did kill the nomination of a future chief justice of the Supreme Court — John G. Roberts Jr.

On Jan. 27, 1992, President Bush nominated Roberts to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Roberts was immensely qualified for the job. He had served since 1989 as principal deputy solicitor general of the United States, arguing 39 cases before the Supreme Court, making him one of the country’s most experienced Supreme Court litigators.

But his nomination to the federal bench was dead on arrival at Biden’s Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden refused to even hold a hearing on Roberts’s nomination, much less a vote in committee or on the Senate floor. Roberts’s nomination died in committee and was withdrawn on Oct. 8, 1992. It was only about a decade later that he was re-nominated to the federal bench by President George W. Bush — and we all know the rest of the story.

Roberts was not alone in being denied a hearing or a vote by Biden. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in 1992 Biden killed the nominations of 32 Bush appointees to the federal bench without giving them so much as a hearing.

It’s different with Obama appointments, though, because argle bargle you’re a racist.

WHAT IS TELEMUNDO RUNNING FOR? “Anyone who doubts that granting citizenship to illegal immigrants will harm the quality of our governance should keep this fact in mind: a great many of these new citizens will get their news and political information from people like María Celeste Arrasa.”

AND HERE IS MY SHOCKED FACE: Rick Perry Cleared Of All Criminal Charges By Texas Court.  Lawfare, just one more way the establishment and the democrats (but I repeat myself) clear the field for their favorites.

YOU CAN’T GROW BY SUBTRACTING: Twitter Can Only Lose When It Polices Abuse.

THIS ALMOST MAKES A VOTE FOR TRUMP PALATABLE. IF I BELIEVED SHARPTON: Al Sharpton might ‘get out of here’ if Trump wins.

NEW YORK VALUES: The city’s war on small business slams ‘cat cafes’.

UNTIL THE CULTURE WAR IS WON ALL YOU’LL GET IN POLITICS IS DUPED: (Yes, if Trump turns out to a) win b) be even a passable president I’ll admit it.  And I hope I’m wrong.  But I doubt it.  You must win the culture first, or you’ll be disappointed again and again.) Wot ab’at the werkers?

SAY, DIDN’T HE DEFEND BILLY BOY? Joe Biden is denouncing rape to an Academy of rape-enablers.

IT’S NOT EVEN THE END OF THE BEGINNING: Yes, chances are very high Trump will be awful (No, don’t want to hear about his magical unicorn riding abilities.  Are you guys actually recycling obamabot eructations now?) but he’d have to work very hard to be more awful than Woodrow Wilson and we survived that.  Even if we’re still living with his legacy.  This will just make it harder to escape it.  But we will.  Eventually. This Is Not The End.

YES, THAT POOR NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ENDURING ALL THAT LIONIZATION: How US academia steers black students out of science.

THE LITTLE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE: GOP Debate Drunkblog: The Wrap.

AT AMAZON, 45% off the Blendtec Classic 475 120V Blender. It’s amazing what you can blend in these things.

Also, Spring deals on Men’s Running & Athletic Shoes.

UM, LINDSEY. . .

UPDATE:

Plus:

NATURE’S WAY OF REMINDING US TO GET THAT SPACE PROGRAM GOING: Asteroid Will Pass Agonizingly Close To Earth. “Space hits the headlines once again this week and this time it doesn’t concern far away objects or potential missions to Mars, but rather an asteroid. In fact this particular space story involves an object that will pass incredibly close to Earth. An asteroid is set to fly past our planet on March 7, passing within 11,000 miles. . . . According to scientists, there is no danger that we will be hit by the space rock. However it will fly underneath some communications satellites. The 100 foot wide space rock has been christened Asteroid 2013 TX68.” Yes, 11,000 miles is half the altitude of a geosynchronous satellite.

GOOD THING WE’VE GOT AN IRS APPROVAL PROCESS TO KEEP PEOPLE SAFE — WAIT, WHAT? 6 Of 13 IRS-Approved Tax Preparers Fail Cybersecurity Test, Put Taxpayer Confidential Information At Risk.

STEVE GREEN IS DRUNKBLOGGING TONIGHT’S GOP DEBATE; stop by early and often via this link.

Hopefully Wolf Blitzer will do better as quizmaster than he did as contestant.

AT AMAZON, save 15% in Home Improvement.

Also, Warehouse Deals on groceries.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: The Trump Wave And The Brexit Boom: Preference Cascades Now Led From The Bottom Up.

LIFE AMONG THE REALLY, REALLY SMART JOURNALISTS AT VOX:

DON’T WORRY, WE’VE GOT OBAMA/KERRY “SMART DIPLOMACY: ON THE JOB! Daniel Drezner: I don’t mean to alarm anyone about China, but . . . Not a lot of good news is coming out of the Middle Kingdom in 2016. Obama and Kerry will do for the Middle Kingdom what they’ve done for the Middle East!

Seriously, what worries me is how worried the Chinese leadership is acting. They probably know more than we do (though probably still not enough to address their problems!) and worried dictatorships tend to behave badly.

UPDATE: China to secure ‘de facto’ control of S. China Sea. Thanks, Obama!

H1B ABUSE: A Disney IT worker who was laid off and replaced by foreign workers along with hundreds of his colleagues broke down in tears before a Senate panel Thursday while telling his story.