DO THE DEMS EVER LEARN ANYTHING? – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  Tough guy Chuck Schumer is now threatening to block Trump's first Supreme Court nominee...sight unseen.   From the New York Post:   

The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, is promising to block one of President-elect Donald Trump’s first big initiatives — naming a ninth member to the Supreme Court.

“It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support,” Schumer said in an interview Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Asked whether he’ll do his “best to hold the seat open” on the Supreme Court, Schumer responded, “Absolutely.”

For Schumer, it’s about retribution. The Republican-controlled Senate failed even to vote on President Obama’s last nomination to the highest court, Merrick Garland, who was put up for the job after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Republicans instead made the Supreme Court a campaign issue, saying whoever was elected president would get to nominate Scalia’s replacement.

The Democratic Senate leader told host Maddow that Republicans got away with not voting on Obama’s nominee, but that “the consequences will be down the road.”

But in June, Schumer sang a different tune, blasting Republicans for not doing their duty and for creating “chaos.”

COMMENT:  Republicans held up the nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that it came too close to a presidential election, and that the new president should have the chance to fill the opening.  One can debate that either way.

However, Schumer has no excuse whatever.  And I think Trump will pick a sterling nominee, and that Democratic delay will backfire.

January 4,  2016