Even in my own state (PA) this would work. Casey has already announced he will not vote for Gorsuch, but with Leahy in the mix he could easily rationalize a change of vote as an attempt to mollify both sides: “I was against Gorsuch before I voted for him.”

We live in interesting times.

The senate has more stupid rules and members that love their stupid rules than any body ever.

Right now they are drunk on resistance and the media helping them out with their russia boogeyman.

But in two years when they are defending 23 seats if things do not work out as they hope and they lose a net 9 seats, they will be in big trouble. Because even if they beat Trump 4 years from now, it may be impossible for them to flip the Senate for a long time.

That will leave them with the white house, and nothing else. At that point they will be screaming that Scotus appts require an up or down vote, and no filibuster.

Problem will be that most of the repub Senators will remember this time and say hold on, you filibustered Gorsuch.

They are gonna fold on Gorsuch, and make sure he gets his 60 for cloture. Any other result could screw them over for a very long time. Breyer, Kennedy, and Ginsburg are not spring chickens.

They have tried a couple of times to close government down in recent history. They got stared down and lost ground because of it.

Trump needs to tell them to bring on the filibuster. Refuse to do any business as a result of it. Until Democrats in public service start to squeal. Closing government doesn’t hurt conservatives.

Let them play their silly game, until all reasonable people see who is being unreasonable.

State the silly buggers down. And shame any Republican who helps them.

As I understand Senate rules, keeping the legislative day open like that requires that a majority of the Senate membership be on the floor 24 hours a day, day after day. This leads to an symmetric problem- Democrats, as the minority, need only keep one member on the floor during debate of anything- the one filibustering. The Republicans, as the majority party, must be the ones keeping a majority on the floor to meet the quorum calls. If they fail to that even once, the Senate adjourns and a new day is started.

Now, if Schumer thinks he has three Republicans in his pocket for beating back the nuclear option, it will become a real filibuster.

That’s not me, but I have friends and family who are on the hook for the world their kids, grand-kids and great-grand-kids will inhabit, so that is me, too, ultimately.

I fear for it. Yet I also know the future has always been uncertain for us wacko monkeys with big craniums.

God bless us, everyone.

I think we are in a lot more trouble for the future than any one can conceive and I just found out today that I have new grand daughter coming into this world. I have now idea how my seven grand critters are going to deal with the future we are giving them. What we want and what we are going to get might be different.