Injudicious: the Senate Judiciary Committee has long been partisan, but with recess appointments and the GOP stealing computer files, it's now also rigged.(Dispatches)

WITH CIVIL RIGHTS, REPRODUCTIVE rights, environmental protections, workers' rights, and yes, even the presidency (see Bush v. Gore) at stake, it's no surprise that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a hot spot for politics--not the handshaking politics of the campaign trail but a passionate, big-picture politics where senators duke it out over the ideological balance of our nation's courts.

The committee, which vets the president's nominees for the federal bench, has surely seen excitement over the years, but it was always still the Senate--navy suits, cordial smiles, ...

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