Beau Elliot
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Hello, Republicans. What do you have to say about … What the? Hmm. Voicemail again.

And I was going to ask them if they thought it’s odd that an Iowa Republican state senator would come up with a quite communist idea, apparently out of the blue. (Maybe that’s out of the red.)

I thought most Republicans were still living in around 1955, when anti-communism was king and everyone on TV was white and middle-class, the president was Republican, and the top tax rate on the wealthy was 91 percent.

Wait a New York minute, Trumpster — 91 percent? Was Bernie Sanders president?

No, he probably was in junior high. Though I admit, sometimes presidents act as though they were still in junior high. We won’t name any names, because you know who you are. Bill.

And George.

Meanwhile, back at the Iowa Republican coddling up to communist ideas — well, OK, he’s probably not coddling communist ideas. They’re pretty hard to coddle, all things considered. Especially those from the Stalinist era, whose architecture will blind you.

But Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan, thinks it would be a great idea if the University of Iowa and Iowa State would kick in $4 million a year or so to aid athletics at Northern Iowa.

Hmm. Sounds like Stalinist architecture to me.

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Besides, the UI Athletics Department might have to spend $4 million a year defending itself against various lawsuits and a Title IX investigation. It’s not as if the university is rolling in dough and creating spanakopita. Just ask any UI TA.

(Interesting sidelight about the field-hockey program: Star player Stephanie Norlander, whose name was wiped from the 2015 roster after she decided to forgo her 2016 senior season, was featured as a Hawkeye star in a commercial during the Iowa-Minnesota game on Sunday. Apparently, the Big Ten Network hasn’t yet received the news that Norlander no longer exists.)

Speaking of no longer existing, apparently that’s what has happened to President Obama’s fourth year of his second term. At least if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is to be believed. Yeah, I know; it’s hard to believe anything coming out of his mouth but spittle.

McConnell, within hours upon hearing of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, famously said the Senate would not even consider any Obama nomination to replace Scalia. Unseemly? Well, sheesh; they hadn’t even had a funeral yet.

Of course, asking a Republican such as McConnell to be seemly is pretty much like asking sandpaper to be silk.

McConnell’s position, backed by Sens. Marco Rubio and our own Chuck Grassley, is that there’s 80 years of tradition of the Senate not confirming Supreme Court nominations in a presidential-election year.

All well and good, except it’s not true. Current Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed by the Senate in 1988, a presidential-election year, and definitely not 80 years ago. McConnell and Grassley, incidentally, both voted to confirm Kennedy, so apparently their 80 years of tradition has some holes in the fabric. Or they’re just full of hogwash. Which is a whole another fabric.

And as Amy Howe of the SCOTUSblog points out, in the 20th century, there have been six times the Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential-election year. So it’s not exactly a virgin experience.

Of course, McConnell and Grassley probably know as much about that as they know about arithmetic.