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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
From Congress Daily PM, via ThinkProgress:

"Senate Majority Leader Frist will file for cloture on President Bush’s nomination of William Myers to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later this week, according to sources on and off Capitol Hill, wasting no time in testing the resolve of 14 Republican and Democratic senators who forced at least a temporary halt to the battle over Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial picks. "

I would think this is more of a test of the resolve the 7 Republicans in the Group of 14, but that's just me.

Are you ready to rrrrrrrruuuuuummmmmmmbbbbbbbblllleee?

Mark Schmitt posted an explanation (attributed to someone else) a few days ago of how Senate moderates can keep Frist's chain reaction from reaching critical mass:

• [A] handful of Republican moderates can stop the option in its tracks to buy time and essentially take control of what happens next. Let me try to explain it as simply as possible: the cloture vote on Justice Priscilla Owen fails. Frist asks the chair to rule that filibusters are out of order on some judicial nominations. The chair so rules. Reid appeals the ruling of the chair. That appeal is debatable -- that is, it can itself be filibustered. So Frist has to move to table the appeal, which is not debatable.
  
  At that point, the Senate votes, presumably along the lines of support for the Nuclear Option itself. But not necessarily. Some number of Republicans could decide to vote against the motion to table. Combined with the votes of all the Democrats and the Republicans who oppose they option, they would defeat the motion to table. At that point, the underlying question returns: Reid's appeal, which Democrats can now filibuster. But everyone is now on record, and the compromisers who made it happen are now in total control. At any point, they can announce that they are switching their votes on a tabling motion, or that they are switching their votes in favor of Reid's appeal. Or, they can hold out for a compromise.

The underlying point here is that Frist simply doesn't have the power that, say, DeLay and Hastert have in the House to force the outcome he wants.