OnPolitics Today: Meet your new justice

Jessica Estepa | Paste BN

Happy Monday, OnPolitics readers, and welcome to the soft relaunch of Paste BN's politics newsletter. Just call us the Newsletter Formerly Known as For the Record. We may have a new name, but expect the same insights in your inbox and some new features and surprises along the way.

Note: You'll notice that you aren't reading this in your inbox yet. We promise that part is coming soon. In the meantime, please subscribe and get you friends to subscribe, too.

Now, let's get to it.

Get ready to hear this guy's name for the next three decades.

Meet your 113th Supreme Court justice, Americans. Fourteen tumultuous months after the death of Antonin Scalia left a seat on the country's highest court empty, Neil Gorsuch was sworn into office on Monday. Gorsuch on the matter: "I am humbled by the trust placed in me today. I will never forget that to whom much is given, much will be expected," he said. "And I promise you that I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the Constitution and laws of this great nation." President Trump on the matter: "And I got it done in the first 100 days. That's even nice. You think that's easy?"

What's next for the youngest man on the court? A heavy workload of cases to hear and petitions to consider — especially those cases that have been stuck at 4-4.

Sidenote: as HuffPo's Jen Bendery noted, now seems as good a time as any to #ff Merrick Garland. It could've been you.

So, where do we stand on Syria?

Days after President Trump signed off on a missile strike in Syria, the White House is threatening more strikes if Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons (and maybe other weapons too?) again. "The sight of people being gassed and blown away by barrel bombs ensures that if we see this kind of action again, we hold open the possibility of future action," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday.

So what's the official administration take on Syria? It's complicated. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley said one thing (yes, remove Assad from power). Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said another (it's up to Syrians). Spicer said those two things aren't "mutually exclusive."

Happy recess!

Congress is off for the next two weeks, and while they may be celebrating holidays, they won't necessarily be having town hall meetings. Thanks to the Obamacare replacement bill debacle a couple weeks ago, a number of Republicans in competitive districts appear to be avoiding a public face-off with their constituents. Per a Paste BN analysis, only two of the 14 Republicans from swing-districts who voted for the bill at the committee level will have town halls: Leonard Lance of New Jersey and Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania. But perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise: February was quite a ride for members of Congress home for recess.

Government shutdown countdown clock:

Just a reminder that we're 17 days out from the federal government running out of funding at midnight on April 28. And no plan has been released to the public yet. And they're, as already stated, on recess.

Elsewhere in politics land:

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