“The Senate on Tuesday will begin what is expected to be a contentious but predictable Supreme Court showdown under a judicial confirmation process that appears to be almost irreversibly damaged and polarized,” the New York Times reports.

“The elimination of the 60-vote filibuster against most judicial nominees by Democrats in 2013 and by Republicans against Supreme Court nominees in 2017 has upended the Senate’s role of offering advice and consent on the president’s picks. It now allows the majority party free rein to push through nominees with little to no consideration for the views or objections of the minority — a major break in Senate tradition.”

Susan Glasser: “McCain’s grand funeral—the Obama adviser David Axelrod called it an exercise in ‘civic communion’—underscored a fact that is often lost about Washington these days. The city is much more bipartisan, in some respects, than it has ever been, more united than it may currently seem, in its hatred of Donald Trump.”

“Some are more forthright about this than others, for understandable reasons. Others are circumspect, especially the elected Republican officials who have now publicly bowed to Trump after trying and failing to stop his ascendance in their party. But their presence at McCain’s funeral suggested that the final chapter has not yet been written in the Republican drama over what to do about the crude interloper who has taken over their party. McCain certainly died hoping for something other than the current, slavish devotion to Trump that many Republicans on Capitol Hill now profess, and that is what his funeral was meant to remind us.”