When subzero temperatures caused a truck driver’s trailer brakes to freeze, he pulled over to the side of the road. After waiting three hours for help to arrive, he began to lose feeling in his extremities, so he unhitched the cab from the trailer and drove to safety. His employer fired him for abandoning company property. The majority in the case called the dismissal unjustified, but Gorsuch said that the driver was in the wrong.

I'd like to see Gorsuch die from leprosy.

Not from freezing to death or doing the wrong thing?

As long as it causes painful and debilitating loss of body parts it'll work.

It's a repeat, but I just heard it yesterday and found it informative. It includes a history of what "the nuclear option" really means. It's not a road we want to travel.

http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/filibusters-work.htm

Yeah, it fucking is, you spineless collaborator. Our grandfathers fought a war over this crap.

The nuclear option will cut both ways though. The Republicans are unlikely to keep the majorities they enjoy currently.

You mean like when they refused to hold hearings on the legitimate nominee of a sitting president?

Exactly. The nuclear option weakens one of our core ideas, that simple majority rule is not necessarily the wisest choice. It's the fact that it does cut both ways that has mostly prevented it from being used, but those days seem to be over.

"Still TBD: whether this is really a good idea."

I can Guarantee the GOP would have done this (go nuclear) on the next nominee so lets get it over with and draw the line.

The real question is there enough (50) Republicans to end the filibusterer and if there is will they feel emboldened to do the same for legislative bills, say their tax cuts latter down the road?

Oh I'm totally behind this filibuster, whatever the consequences. Actually contacted my senators to encourage them to support it (both are).
As far as I'm concerned McConnell and the Republicans lit this fuse when they refused to even hold a hearing on Garland. Now it's up to them to destroy the institution of the Senate to get the Scalia-replacement SCOTUS justice they want.

OK We are on the same page there. It's not their seat no mater who they put up.

Yep. I ponder whether it's a good idea in the long run because we can't yet know the consequences of ending the filibuster, but the way I see it the Dems right now don't have a lot of options so they might as well go for broke.

Yeah. The constitutional crisis started with the refusal to hold hearings on Garland, before Trump was even the nominee.

Sure. Fucking McConnell and the Republicans started this fight. Ending the filibuster is on them.

I'm still trying to understand how filibustering goes further than just the theatrics of raising your hand in objection. We all know liberals and democrats don't want Gorsuch. Forcing McConnell to employ the nuclear option does what exactly? Gorsuch will still be sitting on the SCOTUS no matter what. Changing the rules or moving the goalposts to suit their ideology and narrative is a typical republican tactic. Highlighting that fact does nothing but empower conservatives, and whining about it makes them laugh at you.

I heard someone say on The Circus that republicans consider placing Gorsuch on the SCOTUS and staying out of nuclear war as a total win-win and a total slam dunk success for the dumpsters presidency. That's all they care about for now.

Because this is what the Dem base wants- to resist and not give Trump and the Republicans any easy victories. And from the position Democrats are in now, keeping their base engaged and fired up is really their best strategy to make up for lost ground.

Addendum-
Bill Moyers makes the best, most eloquent case yet for the filibuster against Gorsuch- who is indeed a 'dark money' machine.

Sooner or later in politics, you have to take a stand, even a costly stand, to discover if you really are who you think you are. You can’t go on being bought off, pushed around, made a fool of and outmaneuvered by unprincipled adversaries like Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who one year ago, backed by the likes of the Judicial Crisis Network and a host of secret donors, crudely and completely blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Jamal Greene‏
@jamalgreene
It seems possible to me that AMK is less likely to retire under Trump if the filibuster is gone.

Eh, not to concerned either way about wishy-washy conservative AMK. I'd be more worried about RBG or SGB, but I seriously doubt the status of the filibuster will have much impact on who next leaves the SCOTUS, or when.
But Moyers' main point is to make a stand now, and not sweat the myriad of potential consequences down the road.

No it started much earlier...culminating in the Garland nomination.


During President Barack Obama's terms in office, he nominated 7 people for 27 different federal appellate judgeships and although some nominees were processed by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, many of them stalled on the floor of the Senate. Barack Obama nominated over three hundred individuals for federal judgeships. Of these nominations, Congress confirmed three hundred and seven judgeships, 173 during the 111th & 112th Congresses[1] and 134 during the 113th Congress.[2]

With the Death of Antonin Scalia in February of 2016, in the thick of a Presidential election year, the Republican majority in the Senate made it their stated policy to refuse to consider any nominee put forward by President Obama, arguing that the next president should be the one to appoint Scalia's replacement. Scalia's death was only the second death of a serving justice in a span of sixty years[3]

Republicans filibustered many nominees, and Senator Grassley commented more nominees could have been confirmed had President Obama respected recess appointment precedent by not making recess appointments while the Senate is in session.[4] Although President Obama had never used a recess appointment to appoint a nominee to the federal bench, he had appointed some executive agency officials in January 2012.

As a response to the continuing blocking of several of President Obama's nominees, Sen. Harry Reid on November 21, 2013 invoked the so-called Nuclear option and changed the Senate rules, meaning a simple majority vote will suffice for all nominees except for the Supreme Court.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_judicial_appointment_controversies

Confirmed.