To Mitch McCoNell and Republican candidates

Elections have consequences, even those that result in GOP majorities, and maybe Obama shouldn't have acted with contempt towards this Congress with his phone and pen. Karma is a bitch, as Dear Leader Comrade Obama is about to find out.

It's hard to see how people using their legitimate authority to vote for or against a presidential nominee indicates they don't support the rights granted by the Constitution.

Well, it's not that they don't have the right to, it's the fact that they've already said that no matter who Obama nominates, they won't even consider it and just block it because Obama nominated it. Keeping a vacant seat in the Supreme Court for almost a year and not even looking at the nominees because you're paranoid that the nominees will agree with the president is partisan politics at it's best. Since they're refusing to fill the seat itself, not just voting on whatever nominees they've already ignored, they're disobeying their constitutional duty to fill the Supreme Court.

I was just looking at the Constitution. could you please cite the clause where congress is OBLIGED to fill a Supreme court vacancy?

Article 2 Section 2 clause 2 (odd coincidence) states that "[The President] by and with the ADVICE and consent of the Senate shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for". This states that for an appointed nominee to become a judge, officer etc., they not only need consent from the Senate, but the Senate also needs to advise the president on possible nominee. While it says Congress may vest appointments "as they think proper", anyone with common sense can see that making it clear that you are going to deny whoever is appointed before you even know who they are is not proper. Also. they haven't given any advice or ideas on who he could appoint, just said that whoever it is they will vote against him. They are refusing to do their duty to only vest the candidates when it is proper to do so and refusing to advise the President on any possible nominees. Lastly, the constitution says that The President shall appoint Justices. Not whoever's going to be president a year from now, not Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, or Bernie Sanders; The current President. Can you please find where the constitution says that the president can't appoint someone because it's their last year?

The implicit thinking is that Obama is not going to nominate a conservative or originalist like Scalia. Does anyone actually think Obama would nominate someone the GOP will like?

Oh, I see. That makes it clearer. Thanks.

It's the fact that they aren't even willing to consider who Obama appoints and they'll just ignore it. Obama could appoint anyone in the world, and they will deny them without even looking. They want to keep the seat vacant until we have a new president, almost a year away. While other vacancies take more than a few months to fill, it's usually due to actual discussion over the nominee, not because of absolute refusal to vote on the candidate. The fact that the senate will keep a vacancy in the SCOTUS for almost a year because they're paranoid that the president will pack the court (despite the fact that they're not looking at who he appoints) and they're hoping their party will win the presidency so they can pack the court is partisan politics at it's best.

might want to check your history concerning partisan politics....

Chuck Schumer tried to do the exact thing thing to George.W.Bush and he had four more moths than Obama left.