Mike Luckovich for February 16, 2016

This is not a new rule. It’s part of the conservatives’ “block anything Obama does even if blocking it hurts the country” agenda they’ve been following for more than seven years now.

this cartoon worked for the democrats in 1960 too!

The Constitution was the law of the land before Scalia. It still is. Say “Recess Appointment”

Do you imagine that the Senate will not recess before the election? I don’t.

Bork received a hearing in the Senate and was voted down. Next example? Maybe Anthony Kennedy?Anyhow, Obama said he won’t make a recess appointment.

Impeach McConnell.

Republicans live on a one-way street.

No difference between voting down an unqualified ideologue (who lies about his beliefs) and pledging to simply keep a seat unfilled for a year. Nope. .Oh, Magoo! You’ve done it again.

Some who called for Obama to not nominate a justice, actually voted for justices nominated in Reagan’s final year. Republicans are not known for identifying their own hypocrisy. Obama has the right and the duty to nominate a judge. Any arguments that he hasn’t is just partisan hackery.

No, he just stumbled, BIG-TIME.

What was the liberal view when it was thought Bush might get to make a late term appointment? What did democratic Senator Chuck Schumer have to say back in 2007. “We should reverse the presumption of confirmation” and “I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.”

Seems back then it was OK that the court might go 18 months without a member but it is now bad if it should go 11 months.

Never forget folks, the first argument McConnell and Grassley made against Obama nominating a new Supreme Court justice was a bald faced LIE.

If Obama were to nominate Sen. McCain, would GOP Senators vote nay?.Maybe rabid Rubio and Cruz would, most would probably find it hard not to approve him.

Let his head swing in the wind, metaphorically speaking of course. As there is a worse thing then hanging they say, but at the moment I can’t think of it.

It just amazes me how the congress wants to take away the president’s right to appoint.There they go again obstructing, putting politics over what happens in our nation.They are trying to depart from the constitution even though they complain that Democrats don’t respect the constitution.

It is incorrect to think that the Repugs stated intention of refusing to confirm any Supreme Court nomination is in some way a limited, targeted strike. Since assuming control of the Senate, they have refused to confirm a single federal appeals court nominee to sit in a state with a Repug senator. It has long been customary to require the approval of home state senators prior to the full Senate considering an appellate court nominee.

This is, of course, all of a piece with the Party of No’s policy of grinding the machinery of government to a halt rather than allow a President from the other party to achieve anything during his or her time in office. It is how we got the least productive Congress in our history. It brought us the spectacle of senators forced to filibuster and vote against bills they themselves had sponsored in the belief that said bill would never be brought to the floor for a vote. No vote on their bill, they felt, would allow them to cry “foul” and blame the Dems for obstructionism and a wholly partisan agenda.

Partisanship at all costs is a poor philosophy of governance. It makes a mockery of the notion of “the loyal opposition.” Repug hatred of then Pres. Clinton and, by extension, his wife, was inflamed during Speaker Gingrich’s term by their anger that the President didn’t play the partisanship game in the way that they felt it should be played. If Mr. Clinton felt that a Republican policy proposal had promise, he would work with it, often making a counter-proposal with changes that reflected his perspective on the issue at hand. This infuriated Gingrich and his ilk, who felt that Mr. Clinton should reflexively oppose anything they supported. It was the genesis of the no-compromise-at-all-costs attitude that has guided the Repug legislative approach since.

In the past 100 years, 19 Supreme Court Justices were nominated AND confirmed in an election year:KaganAlitoBreyerSouterScaliaRehnquistBlackmunGoldbergWhiteWarrenVinsenMurphyReedRobertsCardozoHughesSutherlandClarkeBrandeis.So let’s just stop this nonsense about how Obama can’t carry out his Constitutional responsibilities, and how the Senate isn’t obligated to carry out theirs

No one should be surprised that the R’s pulled this. It’s consistent with their MO since Obama took office. The President will (and should) proceed with his Constitutional duty. The Republican Senate will proceed to NOT do theirs.

Hey libbies! Did you forget about this?

S.RES. 334, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment.

Yeah, YOU GUYS came up with S. RES. 334 a binding resolution. Now please sit down and shut up you sore losers. :P