He’d be bringing back the filibuster at a time when a Republican president could potentially send through a SCOTUS nomination to a Senate with a thin Democratic majority. That would put an incredible amount of pressure on centrist Dems. Even though Schumer could block the nomination from ever getting to the floor for…

I’ve flown more than half a million miles in the last 15 years, and I still fucking dread getting on planes. It’s not PTSD or anything, I just have terrible anxiety about flying. I definitely avoid flying when I can. 

I have no doubt there will be more allegations. But the Republicans have made it clear they were only interested in hearing the first one. Look how easily they dismissed the other ones. I very seriously doubt the FBI will uncover anything in 7 days substantial enough to jeopardize the confirmation. Rosenstein…

If there is in fact a delay, and it does ultimately further imperil the confirmation, I’ll be happy to credit Flake. I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing, and if there was a real chance it would jeopardize Kavanaugh, he wouldn’t have done it. Just my opinion, obviously, but Flake’s track record is there to see. 

Can't say I'm a fan of his, either. I'm not black, but I'd hope he hates me, too. 

I admire your optimism, but this is the ultimate hollow gesture from Flake. The FBI won’t turn up anything disqualifying in a week, and the Republicans have made clear they’re not listening to any further allegations against Kavanaugh. Truth is, Kavanaugh is Flake’s ideal SCOTUS justice. He has no interest in blocking…

Manchin might as well vote yes if the Republicans have the votes anyway. I’d rather see him hold on to his seat than cast a meaningless no vote, and that very well could be a deciding factor in November.

Graham, Flake, Corker, and the rest of the supposedly anti-Trump Republicans are giving us a pretty stark reminder that their party was plenty awful long before Trump arrived.

It sounds like the Republicans know they have her and Murkowski in the bag. I’m afraid it’s over. Hopefully the Dems can unseat her, given I would expect this to be pretty unpopular in your home state. Not holding my breath there, either, obviously. But it’s all we can hope for at this point. 

The only people who matter now are Collins and Murkowski. And the latest indications seem to be that they’ll fall in line. 

Jeff Flake has always been a conservative. He may truly despise Trump, but he cares a lot more about moving the country further to the right. His voting record says it all. Kavanaugh is a perfect SCOTUS candidate for someone like Flake. It was incredibly naive to think he was going to block Kavanaugh on the way out…

He’s anti-Trump the person, but he’s always been pro- all the awful, conservative ideals  the modern Republican Party has come to represent. Kavanaugh is Flake’s ideal SCOTUS judge. You think he’s going to pass on that just because he doesn’t like the guy who nominated him?

It’s obvious the entire right’s strategy is to overshadow and distract from Dr Ford’s compelling testimony by attacking Feinstein for how she handled the allegations. And it’s probably going to work. They’ve made the Dems look hypocritical for sitting on the allegations for more than a month, and then screaming about…

It’s part of the Splinter style guide. Every post about Trump, SHS, Fox, or any prominent Republican doing exactly what they always do must be characterized as an outrageous deviation from normal affairs. I appreciate the pushback on normalizing this behavior, but that ship has sailed. 

I didn’t know what to expect from her. I guess given that she is a prominent researcher and professor, I expected a very measured, buttoned-up, matter of fact performance. I expected her to be credible, but I never imagined she could be so raw, so authentic, and so heartbreakingly believable. For anyone who might have…

Alabama is also over 60% approval. Indiana and North Dakota are both a little over 50%. These are seats the Democrats are lucky to have. Jones and Donnelly lucked into their seats when their opponents turned out to be shitheads even Republicans couldn’t fully support. You can bet their opponents this time around (or…

As usual, you’ve failed to make a compelling case that voting against Kavanaugh won’t hurt their chances in their deeply conservative states. National opinion polls are completely irrelevant. What matters is what voters in their states want. Voting against him could absolutely sink them in states where they will be…

Yep, he can go, and his wife who was complicit in smearing his victims can stay home, too. But all the Democratic establishment can see is money, and nobody brings in the donor $$$ like the Clintons.  At some point we’re gonna have to try to do this shit without their money.  Maybe we get stomped (doubtful), but the…

The two party system we have tends to mask the coalitions needed to build majorities that are much clearer in multi-party, parliamentarian-style governments. On the right you have the ultra-wealthy, the religious right and the racists and bigots. They all seem to get along pretty well, and have their shit together…

While I don’t doubt you encountered this line of thinking at some point during the 2016 campaign season, I certainly don’t remember the notion that SCOTUS wasn’t that important gaining any kind of traction at Splinter or in the comments.  I do remember quite a few pragmatists trying to use SCOTUS as an issue to unite…