Can Democrats actually stop the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh?

I think there’s already a Saint Bart so that spot is taken.

No mas! No mas!”

  • Roberto Duran

Maybe this is a filibuster in disguise.

Commenter TenguPhule at Balloon Juice: “And so the rule of law dies not with a bang, but with a long rambling speech by Susan Collins that bored it to death.”

Not surprised that Collins will vote for Kavanugh, but I’m slightly surprised that she’s signing onto the ridiculous conspiracy theory nonsense. Oh well. Shitty for the country and for women in general, but there’s a chance this is, politically, the best case scenario for Democrats – keep women and progressives who care about women utterly enraged, and satisfy the Republican base, preventing them from being angry.

The party of sexual assault wins this round. Hopefully they’ll lose the next one.

This is almost as bad as Vogon poetry.

I can’t wait to vote against her again.

Another deplorable doing deplorable things. Welcome to the Age of Trump.

I imagine a day with a lot of people taking selfies in front of the Supreme Court while holding a can of beer.

She left off praising him for his persecution of Hillary over her murder of Vince Foster. So, there’s that…

Basically they go into the final battle on the back of a detailed speech supporting the nominee by a moderate woman Senator… seems to be a good tactic.

The fundraising page for Collins’ 2020 opponent has apparently crashed from the overload.

Manchin now a YES

Well, it was fun pretending we weren’t chattel for a few decades.

what conspiracy was she talking about , did not see her speech.

Joe waited until he knew it was happening with or without him.

If he’s reelected look for him to switch party or to go “Independent caucusing with GOP. “

Yeah, my impression is that if his vote were the deciding one, he would have been a “no”, but since it’s happening anyways, no sense in pissing off a majority of West Virginians over it. The minority of West Virginians that call themselves Democrats are going to be livid though.

Yeah, the polling was showing the Republicans were getting worked up because of the Kavenaugh controversy. Getting this closed now will give them an outlet so they’re not as fired-up for the midterms, and will have the opposite effect for the Democrats (I hope).

Wonder what the ratings were for Collins’s speech? Certainly sucked in a lot of people who were unsure how she was going to vote.

I don’t think this will get Murkowski to change her vote though. Evidently there’s a pending SC case (Sturgeon v Frost, 17-949, Sturgeon v. Frost - SCOTUSblog See this NPR interview with Alaska A.G. Lindemuth about it: https://www.alaskapublic.org/2018/08/14/sturgeon-case-navigates-its-way-back-in-front-of-supreme-court/ ) that will look at which entity gets to regulate things like Native hunting/fishing rights in Alaska, and the Natives are concerned that Kavanaugh will vote against their interests. As the Native voting bloc is a large one in AK, Murkowski doesn’t want to irritate them. It’d take a big block of cash or other programs to convince the Natives to want to trade away their current extremely favorable status under Alaska hunting, fishing, and other water rights laws.

OTOH, it looks like Flake will vote to confirm if he holds constant with this cloture vote today. I don’t know if Manchin will vote Yes if his vote would put the confirmation vote at 51. Which leads to a 50-50 tie, assuming Senator Daines’s plane doesn’t crash getting back from Montana, and a Pence vote to confirm.

Knock me over with a feather.

It won’t happen, of course, but here’s my fantasy: Cory Gardner realizes this means he has a free ‘No’ vote and takes advantage of it, but since they vote in alphabetical order, that puts Manchin in the position of knowing he’ll be the 50th vote. His brain overloads under the pressure, he has a nervous breakdown on the Senate floor, and has to be hospitalized without casting his vote. Then Murkowski realizes that she no longer has a free ‘No’ vote, ducks into the cloak room, leaves the building in a panic and catches the next plane back to Alaska. But now it’s 49-49 (and unlike with cloture they don’t need 50, just a majority) and Pence breaks the tie.