In the What the ? Department … Who won? Who lost? « Who knows »?

‘The Senate is to vote Tuesday to end debate on Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, clearing the way for her to gain a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans. With the threat of a filibuster by Democrats removed, she was nearly certain then to get the simple majority vote needed to give her the seat that long has eluded her, perhaps as early as Tuesday. The compromise agreement was hammered out over days of negotiations by a group that included some of the Senate’s most senior and most junior members. It guarantees confirmation of at least three Bush appointees but lets Democrats continue to block two others. The agreement also opens the way for yes-or-no votes on two other of … Bush’s judicial picks who have been in nomination limbo for more than two years — William H. Pryor Jr. for the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It may add pressure on … Bush to take greater note of the preferences of Senate Democrats when he makes his pick to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy. And it removed a Democratic threat to snarl Senate business, which could have doomed Bush proposals on Social Security, immigration and taxes.’

Sad day when ‘moderates’ do a ‘compromise’ which still lands right-wing fascist judges permanent judicial seats.

But I liked the part where Mr. Dr. Bill Jesus Frist snuck out the back way, his press secretary holding the doors of the Capitol closed against the press gaggle following him to allow the getaway. His paymasters in the nation’s churches can’t be pleased today.