Jim Bunning Blocks More Obama Nominees

Jim Bunning’s latest parliamentary maneuvering isn’t going to get in the way of anyone’s unemployment benefits, but might strike some as silly all the same: The Republican senator is blocking two minor Obama administration nominees to protest a Canadian law banning tobacco flavorings. And while the issue is important in Bunning’s native Kentucky, it’s adding a backlog of unconfirmed nominees longer than President Bush’s was at this same point, the Huffington Post notes.

“This is a perversion of the filibuster and a perversion of the role of the Senate,” Minnesota Democrat Al Franken thundered today. “It used to be that the filibuster was reserved for matters of great principle.”