The Little Girls Who Screech The Sky Is Falling... Everyday, All Day

Henny Penny prepares for battle, along with Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey & Turkey Lurkey

Imagine Dick Cheney shot up with lots of botox and wearing a blond wig. Or just watch the video from Fox yesterday morning:



I had already started writing this piece before I saw that clip. So the piece isn't really about the Republican determination to drag the country back into the "good old days" of Bush-Cheney. And the "little girls" in the title have nothing to do with the Cheney girls. It refers to the Republican Senate Caucus and whoever decides what the members are supposed to do. Saturday we looked at Tuesday's impending battle over the nomination of David Hamilton, a moderate Indiana judge recommended by Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, who has been blocked by the GOP since March. Last week Harry Reid filed a cloture motion and Tuesday, Senate Republicans have to decide how seriously they want to filibuster this one.

Yesterday, The Hill reported on a schism within the GOP over this, with hysterical extremists like Reagan's widely discredited porn and drug-obsessed Attorney General Ed Meese and neo-fascist publisher Alfred Regnery clamoring for more and unending obstructionism while other movement conservatives-- not to mention worried elected officials-- worrying that voters are getting sick and tired of overly partisan GOP jihads against all of President Obama's nominations and programs. It works for Liz Cheney, but normal Americans don't have the same point of view.

Twenty four leading conservatives have signed a memo urging Republican senators to filibuster Hamilton, setting the stage for the first protracted Senate fight over one of Obama’s judicial nominees.

Hamilton will likely receive an up-or-down vote because Democrats control 60 seats, but conservative and liberal advocates say a filibuster would be significant because it would serve as a precedent for Obama’s future judicial nominees.

But the effort to build momentum for a filibuster has become snagged on dissent within conservative circles over whether it is the right strategy. The outcome of the debate may influence how Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), proceed on other controversial nominees.

Manuel Miranda, a former Senate GOP leadership aide and chairman of Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservative leaders that has taken an active role in several high-profile debates of judicial nominees, has questioned the push to block Hamilton.

“Respectfully, I disagree with this rally to ‘vote no on the cloture’ for this or any nominee that one would expect a Democratic president to nominate, if he sole purpose is to block or ‘stop,’ and not merely and genuinely to prolong a debate,” Miranda wrote in an e-mail to fellow conservatives.

Miranda’s group was formerly known as the National Committee to End the Judicial Filibuster. He was one of scores of conservative leaders who sent a letter in 2005 to Senate GOP leaders demanding they abolish the filibuster of judicial nominees.

While Miranda still opposes the filibuster of controversial nominees, other conservatives are warming up to the idea with a Democratic president in the White House.

Two dozen conservatives led by former Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese have signed a letter calling on senators to invoke the justification of “extraordinary circumstances” to block Hamilton’s nomination.

“Judge Hamilton is precisely the kind of liberal judicial activist who would use our federal courts as his own superlegislature,” they wrote. “The Senate should vote no on the cloture vote to stop his nomination.”

Nine of the individuals who signed the memo also signed the 2005 letter to GOP leaders calling for them to abolish the filibuster of judicial nominees, an apparent conflict that leaves some conservatives uncomfortable.

Tuesday approval of the Senate will, no doubt, sink even further in the minds of most Americans, although it isn't likley that Republican congressional approval, currently at 19%, can possibly sink any further until after Texas and South Carolina secede.