Burnt Orange Report

Byron,

Thanks for the heads up. C-span can rock at times, although I don't see Sen. Reid right now.

Really, though, I have to question your choice of wording "...Republicans are doing their best to be difficult to our senators." Umm, how? By refusing to surrender? As I recall, it is your side that is using a novel new interpretation of Senate rules to block judical nominees who refuse to legislate from the bench. "Justice Rogers wouldn't strike down Prop. 206. She upheld a parental notification law. She is thus anti-minority/woman and can't be allowed on the bench." "Miguel Estrada is a Hispanic whose promotion to the SCOTUS would be tough to block ... I mean, he's a 'stealth nominee,' whose answered every question we posed to him, and who isn't Hispanic enough. Unqualified." etc. So we are being difficult by not making it as easy as possible for your side to get away with this? Please.

Acknowledge you are being obstructionists, and take pride in your success -- and the gutless failure of Senate GOPers to exercise their majority power and curtail this absurdity via the 51 vote "nuclear option." When we were in the minority during '93-'95, we didn't have the nerve to pull something like this off against Clinton's nominees. Although, that somewhat changed from '95-'01, but we used the committee process, not a creative new type of filibuster.

Like you, though, I approve of Reid's marathon. Anything that highlights this gridlock, and brings it to the fore of the public mind, is great. It will make it that much easier for us to go "nuclear" as the only alternative when there is a SCOTUS vacancy.

Sherk

I just caught the end of it. I actually flipped through C-SPAN earlier today and saw Reid speaking, but it looked like a normal speech, so I kept going. Then I got home from work, flipped it on and saw a visibly slower and tiring Reid and I figured that something was up. So I did a quick google news search and wha-lah!

The "being difficult" remark is based on Frist calling a silly 30 hour session to deal with judical nomination. Frist doesn't have the 60 votes to break a Dem filibuster, so he's holding rediculously long sessions to force at least 41 Democrats to stay on or near the senate floor when they could be doing better things with their time, like serving their constituents in their states or working on the budget. That's fine. Frist is within his power to do that. So is Reid within his power to screw up the GOP calender. I'm proud of Reid. Frist has decided to play hardball this week and Reid and Daschle are swinging back. Good for them.

Funny to hear that Estrada was not "hispanic enough" when during the Clinton Admin. a good hispanic from El Paso named Enrique Moreno was blocked from even a hearing by the GOP senate. I guess he was "TOO hispanic" At least Estrada got a hearing.