GOP back to the same old tricks

You'll be shocked to learn Senate Republicans are blocking critical judicial nominees again. They're damned determined to keep the D.C.Circuit  controlled by cons and they're not afraid to filibuster. (What "gentlemen's" agreement?)

And can we please call the "court-packing" claim a lie?

Cornyn's court-packing claim is misleading -- it is a reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's attempts to expand the size of the Supreme Court; Obama merely wants to fill vacancies on the appellate level. But he repeated the talking point in multiple op-eds recently, laying the groundwork for a mass filibuster and pressuring GOP senators not to allow Obama to fill any of the three vacant seats on the D.C. Circuit court.

Republicans don't take issue with Millett's qualifications; they argue that the court's caseload is relatively low and so the size of its active bench should be reduced from 11 to eight judges. If they refuse to relent, it would put Democrats in a difficult position, forced to either surrender on a top judicial priority or possibly threaten to scale back the filibuster.

Filling standing vacancies is the Senate's damn job. As has long been the custom, the winners of the election get to pick the nominees. The losers of the election get to vote against them but they can't be allowed to continuously obstruct the process. Every Democrat inside the Beltway Bubble should be demanding an up or down vote. Maybe if they all changed their name to John McCain and stood on the steps of The Capitol chanting "up-or-down vote" Big Media might report about it on the teevee.

Meanwhile, nobody is scared of Harry Reid and his empty threats.

Republicans aren't fretting. "I don't really take this threat of the nuclear option very seriously when it comes to judicial nominations," Cornyn told reporters.

Screw those smug thugs. Kill the damn filibuster. You know if they ever regain the Senate, the GOPers will kill it on the first day so do it now.