Catch of the Day

Adam Serwer's brilliant analysis of Justice Alito's solo dissent today in the Westboro case (do crazed homophobes harassing grieving military families deserve First Amendment protection?), along with Alito's previous dissent in the "crush video" First Amendment case:

When it comes to First Amendment rights, Justice Alito draws the line at grieving military families and the suffering of small animals, which is actually kind of sweet. Wrong, but sweet. Who says conservative judges have no empathy?

Cute, and a great catch.

I have nothing to add, but since I really don't like doing zero-value-added posts, I'll note that the Senate seems to be grinding through a couple of noncontroversial judicial nominees every week. This is...what's the right word...oh: pathetic. The non-controversial ones can and should be dealt with quickly and easily. But for what it's worth, holdups on the Senate floor aren't the current problem. I count 8 judicial nominees who have cleared committee and are waiting for floor action. If these numbers are current and updated, there are another 36 appointments that have not yet cleared committee (presumably, some of those did clear committee in the 111th Congress but never received final confirmation votes, and were resubmitted again this year; I don't know the numbers on that). And then there are 53 judicial vacancies for which Barack Obama has not made any appointment -- including 16 of the 24 openings at the Circuit Court level.

Pathetic, indeed.