Rachel Maddow runs down a list of highly qualified candidates who are being held up from assuming their positions in the executive branch by the petty and, by all appearances, organized opposition of grandstanding GOP Senators. By delaying the confirmations of legal experts Dawn Johnson and Harold Koh, decorated veteran Tammy Duckworth, and perhaps most troublingly the respected diplomat Chris Hill whose nomination as Ambassador to Iraq has received the forceful backing of no less than General David Petraeus, the Obama administration is being hampered in its ability to effectively govern by obstructionist Republicans. The Washington DC editor of The Nation Christopher Hayes describes this dangerous game of political score settling as “outrageous.”

—Corbin Hiar

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