By Jeffrey Toobin, Daily Comment @ newyorker.com, March 12, 2013

On the same day as Rand Paul’s celebrated filibuster against drone strikes last week, the Senate engaged in a less noticed but more typical form of delay and obstruction. A majority of the Senate voted to bring up the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but forty-one Republican Senators voted to prevent her from receiving consideration. This is the modern version of the filibuster, far more common than Paul’s thirteen-hour speech. Without sixty votes, it’s now virtually impossible to accomplish anything in the contemporary United States Senate.

This senatorial entropy has taken an enormous toll on President Obama’s judicial appointments. This was the second time that Halligan received majority support, but, because she never passed the threshold of sixty, her nomination now appears doomed [....]