"... under McConnell (R-Ky.), the current Senate has confirmed the fewest civilian presidential nominees of any Congress in the past 30 years."

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COMMENTS:
*  Dear Mitchell, by stalling anything to do with President Obama you are really hurting the US people. Obviously you do not care about the US people very much. That's okeh because in January you will be relegated back to the minority leader status in the US Senate and someone responsible and grown up will help to move our great country forward and help the good people of the United States of America. Goodbye Mitchell
*  The Republican refusal to vote on the Supreme Court nomination in favor of permitting some unnamed future constituency to influence the nomination process effectively disenfranchises President Obama's constituents. What the Republicans are doing (disenfranchising us) is unconstitutional. Impeachment hearings against Sen. Grassley should start immediately. The Republicans have no constitutional right to impose some "lame duck" fabrication on President Obama's authority. This is flagrant partisan politics trying to control the Judicial Branch of the government; something the Framers of the Constitution tried hard to avoid. Impeach all the miscreants!!!
*  In the past twenty five (25) years .....the Republican Party hasn't initiated, proposed or accomplished ANYTHING .... to make America a better place for Americans.  In 2014, the electorate was fooled into believing that if they could just take control of both House and Senate .... the Republicans could get something done.  The electorate attentively listened to Republican Marsha Blackburn rant on Sunday talk shows on how Harry Reid had a pile of job bills sitting on his desk. Over and over again .... Republicans drove this message home and the electorate refused to believe that a team of economist at the Brookings Institute soundly criticized the bills as a bad joke.....that the Republican job's bills really wouldn't create jobs!  Well everyone .... especially Republicans who voted for these do-nothing drones in 2014 ..... where's the beef? Where are those 400 Harry Reid bills? Why haven't you retrieved the bills and floated them for a vote?  The American electorate knows why! Don't we?
*  Crooks like Mitch McConnell are the reason Republican party is imploding.
    *  Yes! Please, whatever state he represents, he needs to be voted out of office.
*   McConnell has a problem with the nominee..  Is nominee a problem because he is a black Muslim? No, He is a white Jew.  Is nominee a problem because he is young and will serve many decades? No, he is 63.  Is nominee a problem because Democrats approved him for present job? No, Republicans mostly approved.  Is nominee a problem because the people should decide? No, they decided four years ago.  Is nominee a problem because he bloched the Oklahoma Bomber and Unibomer cases? No, excellent job.  Is Senate doing its job? No.  Is President doing his job? Yes.
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Mitch McConnell’s Senate is confirming very, very few presidential nominees
By Mike DeBonis, May 5, 2016

Since taking the reins of the Senate last year, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has striven to portray the upper house as “working again” under his Republican majority after years of partisan gridlock — passing major legislation on transportation, Medicare, drug abuse and more.

But by one measure highlighted by Democrats, the Senate has done remarkably little: An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that, under McConnell (R-Ky.), the current Senate has confirmed the fewest civilian presidential nominees of any Congress in the past 30 years.

Through April 30, 198 of President Obama’s nominees have won confirmation in the 114th Congress, excluding military appointments. Compare that to the 345 nominees confirmed up to that date in the final two years of President George W. Bush’s tenure, or the 286 nominees confirmed in the comparable window under President Bill Clinton.

The analysis was commissioned by Senate Democratic leaders, who have bristled at McConnell’s attempts to portray the Senate as newly well-functioning. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) blamed repeated Republican filibusters for shutting down the Senate earlier in Obama’s term and says the only reason the Senate is working again is because Democrats are willing to work in the minority to pass bipartisan bills.

“The Republican Senate is making history for all the wrong reasons,” Reid said in a statement. “Since taking the Senate majority, Republicans have doubled down on their commitment to gridlock, confirming the fewest nominations in decades. This is yet another example of Senate Republicans refusing to do their jobs.”

The difficulty of getting Obama’s nominations confirmed was highlighted last week when the Senate acted, after months of delay, to confirm Roberta Jacobson as ambassador to Mexico after a complicated political deal involving three GOP senators.

The report comes as Democrats are making a new push for the confirmation of Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February. Republicans have vowed to block Merrick Garland’s confirmation until the next president is elected, and Democrats are seizing on the ascension of Donald Trump to presumptive GOP presidential nominee to undermine that stance.

The current Senate’s record is particularly dim on judicial confirmations. Obama has seen 17 lifetime judges confirmed in the past 16 months, compared to 45 for Bush in the same time frame, 40 for Clinton, and a whopping 82 for George H.W. Bush (including a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas).

But Republicans have countered by pointing out that a similar number of Obama and George W. Bush judicial nominees have been confirmed overall, thanks to a lame duck flurry of confirmations in late 2014, after Democrats lost the Senate.

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said the Democratic analysis also “counts each nomination, no matter how small, with the same weight as legislation, no matter how large,” and pointed to a Washington Post Fact Checker item that dismissed Reid’s claim in December that this is “the most unproductive Senate in the history of the country.”

“A vote on the deputy undersecretary of commerce is not the same as passing the first multi-year highway bill in a decade,” he said.
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