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Anyone buying that? No? OK Neil Gorsuch has been confirmed to a lifetime SCOTUS appointment, there’s nothing they can do about it, and Democrats are furious. Lefties who demanded the “nuclear option” be employed when they were in power, are simply aghast that the GOP has called Harry Reid’s bluff and used it against them. Remember, as Reid famously said, “Let them do it, why would we care.”

In the first week of April, 2017, a nostalgic nation watched as one of the grand old institutions crumbled into dust: the Senate filibuster was removed from the toolbox for presidential appointments. Many on both sides of the aisle shed a tear or two as the US Senate lost one of its most famous and romantic tools; until the Democrats overplayed their hand on the Gorsuch nomination, a single Senator could hold up a presidential appointee with a filibuster. No more. Before you shed any more tears, though, dear Gentle Reader, please consider who had long been empowered with this...

Now that the judicial filibuster in the U.S. Senate has been nuked, it’s time to look at the political fallout going forward. And for Democrats, the news is all bad. Here are three reasons why Democrats just made a dumb mistake by filibustering Neil Gorsuch. 1. The GOP is now free to put real Scalia-Thomas types throughout the judiciary The argument for years as to why Republicans needed stealth Supreme Court candidates like David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, and John Roberts (who have all gone on to be disappointments to varying degrees) was the filibuster. However, now that it’s no longer...

Back when I was a young staffer in the House of Representatives, we viewed the Senate with some disdain. Senators -- and more so their staffs -- were imperious. They viewed themselves as being in the higher chamber and employed arcane rules, most notoriously the filibuster, to block actions they didn't like. But I've learned a thing or two in the more than 40 years since I left my job on the House Judiciary Committee, and I've changed my mind about those Senate rules. Sometimes we need a brake, judiciously applied, to give politicians and the country the time to...

In 2003, when Chuck Shumer began filibustering Bush’s nominees to the lower courts — a departure that tested what was a relatively new “norm” — the GOP came close to getting rid of it. In 2013, after the GOP had successfully filibustered 5 — yes, just 5 —

Hillary Clinton's running mate is predicting Democrats will go "nuclear" if Republicans try to stonewall a potential Supreme Court nominee by Clinton. Tim Kaine on Friday said he believes Senate Democrats will change the chamber's rules if they run into GOP obstruction in 2017. Kaine, however, said Friday that there's a "significant likelihood" that Garland will get confirmed this year.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., bemoaned the state of the Senate on Thursday as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to change the chamber’s rules in order to break through the Democratic filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch with a simple majority. Earlier in the day, Republicans failed to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to end debate and proceed to a vote. “It’s a bad day for democracy,” McCain said before entering the Senate chamber, where he later voted with fellow Republicans to change the rules. “I think it’s a terrible mistake that we will regret for many, many years to...

Republicans invoked the "nuclear option" in the Senate Thursday, unilaterally rewriting the chamber's rules to allow President Donald Trump's nominee to ascend to the Supreme Court. Furious Democrats objected until the end, but their efforts to block Judge Neil Gorsuch failed as expected. Lawmakers of both parties bemoaned the long-term implications for the Senate, the court and the country....

Senate Republicans deployed the so-called “nuclear option” Thursday afternoon in a bid to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, moving to overcome a Democratic filibuster just minutes earlier. The Senate initially voted 55-45 on a motion to end debate on Gorsuch, with four Democrats breaking ranks; it needed 60 to succeed. Known as a filibuster, this vote triggered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to go “nuclear.” This means he is trying to change Senate precedent so that the Senate can move to a final roll call with just a simple majority of 51 votes, as opposed to 60....

Filibuster vote

Some ask why Democrats are filibustering Judge Gorsuch, who has received accolades from even some of the most partisan, liberal lawyers. But a clash is inevitable — if not over this Supreme Court nominee, then surely over the next. Democrats are about to launch the first, partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee, forcing an end to Senate rules that have helped foster centuries of bipartisanship. But while everyone is discussing the partisanship over Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation, the real question is being ignored: what has caused this increased rancor? There is a lot at stake. In fact, there is...

Sen. Jeff Merkley spoke for over 15 hours, protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, saying how this seat on the high court is stolen, and that the integrity of the courts would be undermined for decades if the Senate confirms him. Yes, a man who received the American Bar AssociationÂ’s highest rating is going to denigrate the courts. This is bath salts logic, but Merkley has been one of GorsuchÂ’s early (and vocal) opponents. HeÂ’s from a blue state. And his base is frothing at the mouth to go all-out war, even in the face of defeat....

Rich Lowry: Throughout its history, the United States Senate has experienced disgraceful filibusters (Strom Thurmond against the 1957 Civil Rights Act), entertaining filibusters (Huey Long in 1935 reciting a fried-oyster recipe) and symbolic filibusters (Rand Paul making a point about drone strikes in 2013). But the filibuster that Chuck Schumer is about to undertake against Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court is perhaps the institution’s dumbest. Hard to argue with that, but in the interest of progressive politics there is nothing so dumb that the Democrats won’t do it. It won’t block Gorsuch, won’t establish any important jurisprudential...

“I would like to meet that idiot, I’d like to meet the numskull that would say that,” he told reporters. “That after 200 years, at least 100 years of this tradition, where the Senate has functioned pretty well, they think it would be a good idea to blow it up.” McCain said changing the rules would be a “body blow to the institution,” adding he thinks it puts them on a slippery slope. .. McCain said he’s had numerous conversations with members on both sides of the aisle in an attempt to strike an agreement on the matter.

Sen. Claire McCaskill At least 41 Democratic senators have publicly committed to filibuster President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, leading to a probable showdown with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.The filibuster might seem like payback for Democrats after Republicans refused to consider the nomination of then-President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, for 293 days starting last year. Unlike Republicans last year, however, Democrats don’t have all that much power. They aren’t in the majority — and McConnell has strongly hinted that he could seek to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court picks if Gorsuch can’t get 60...

Check the polls for the last 10 years (at least): no single profession, nor any other group of people in America, is more universally despised than the US Congress and its members (although, thanks largely to their control over reelection variables, their constituents usually reelect almost all of them.) Their “approval” rating as a group is often in the teens and, today, is actually at one of its high-water marks – up to the low 20’s in some polls!

Confused by what's going on in the Senate for Judge Gorsuch's Supreme Court confirmation? We hear ya. So we'll let Jimmy Stewart and Mufasa explain...

U.S. Sen. John McCain on Monday announced that he will support an upcoming effort by his fellow Republicans to win Senate confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by changing the chamber's rules in order to overcome Democratic opposition. McCain, in remarks to reporters, said he had "no choice" but to go along with a change in rules ending a tradition of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate needed to advance Supreme Court nominees to a final vote. He said he would support the rule change "because we need to confirm Gorsuch." In the past, McCain has strongly...

Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, won approval Monday on a party-line vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee, setting the stage for a filibuster showdown on the Senate floor later this week. At the same meeting, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware announced he would provide the crucial 41st vote need to support the threatened Democratic-led filibuster of Gorsuch. The committee's 11 Republicans all endorsed Gorsuch as a well-qualified conservative judge whose record "falls well within the mainstream," as committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) put it. All nine Democrats opposed Gorsuch. They faulted the Republican nominee for refusing...

All I can hear is Bill Lumbergh’s voice: “Yeeaahhh, I’m gonna have to say no.” Needless to say, no one to the right of David Souter would survive a vetting process in which Democrats had veto power over a Gorsuch replacement. Besides, various liberal legal luminaries like Neal Katyal and Kathleen Sullivan have already weighed in on whom Trump should appoint to the Supreme Court. They named Neil Gorsuch. There’s your compromise.I’m surprised this no-hoper of an idea is Schumer’s best shot at a “reasonable” solution to the Gorsuch standoff. He could have floated a new “Gang of 14”...