Huge false alarm to start out with. Because I work up there a lot, I know a bit about Senate procedure, and when Inhofe of Oklahoma got up and made a unanimous consent request that the Senate debate the Bond amendment to the transportation bill, then to a motion to table it, and then to take up judicial nominations, I assumed we were about to witness the nuclear option in action.
However, the "judicial nominations" turned out to be two district judges in North Carolina who had been passed out of the Judiciary Committee on March 3. They are expected to pass rather easily and, though the subject of a "hold" by John Edwards when he represented North Carolina, are not expected to be the subject of a filibuster.
Frist, however, has promised to bring the nuclear option to the floor of the Senate prior to their recess, which is supposed to happen tomorrow. Bush has a news conference for 8:00 tonight. At first, I thought this could be the excuse for a typical Rovian diversion: pull the trigger on the nuclear option while the press and the people watched Bush extol his dead Social Security privatization plan at his press conference. This is still possible.
It is also possible that Bush will discuss the nukyuhlur option tonight at his press conference and try to tell the nation why it's so necessary that it happen, and then, Frist will pull the trigger tomorrow.
Of course, Kittykiller Frist could always figure out that he doesn't have the votes, in which case, he might not pull the trigger at all at this point. He is under *huge* pressure from his wingnut followers to do so, however, and even if he doesn't have the votes, is he better off to say "I tried. Elect more Republicans in 2006, and we'll do it," or try to wait until he can threaten wavering Republicans with well-funded primary challenges?
This diary started off as "breaking news." We can continue to use it to discuss the pending nuclear option, I suppose...
[DC Pol Sci removes egg from face]
Update [2005-4-28 17:0:10 by DC Pol Sci]: They're on the budget now. They will have one hour of debate on each side of the budget and then a vote 7:00ish. I'm leery of speculating on anything after assuming "judicial nominations" would be the nuclear option, but if they vote on the budget at 7:00, that would be just about the time to proceed to the consideration of judicial nominees if they wanted to do it while Bush was speaking.