“The bald assertion by Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, that he and his colleagues will refuse to consider, much less confirm, any Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, fits precisely in this pattern. ” Jeffrey Toobin explains why the political warfare that began the moment that Antonin Scalia died was entirely predictable: The Brute-Force Politics of Judicial Confirmations.

+ Dahlia Lithwick: We know the type of justice Obama might pick.