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5/19 update…Senate GOP blocks Liu nomination…”The final vote was 52-43, eight votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome the filibuster.”

5/19 update…Vote expected at 2pm Eastern today…RedState targets…Alexander, Brown, Chambliss, Collins, Graham, Isakson, Kirk, McCain, Murkowski, Snowe, and Thune…202-224-3121

I’ll repeat what I said back in January:

President Obama just can’t let go of far Left San Francisco liberals out of touch with mainstream America — and the law.

After dropping two controversial Bay Area judicial nominees from his slate before Christmas, Obama has resurrected the bids of 9th Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu and US Magistrate and ethnic-card jurist Edward Chen and renominated several dozen other candidates.

Liu’s chronic amnesia and recklessly injudicious smearing of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito are bad enough. But his expedient metamorphosis from radical judicial activist to cut-and-run cypher is baldly disqualifying.

Today, Harry Reid filed cloture on UC Berkeley Law prof Liu’s nomination.

The vote is expected on Thursday.

Steven Ertelt at Life News re-caps the stakes:

Obama picked Liu for the open federal appeals court seat a year ago, but Republican filibusters kept him from receiving approval in the full Senate — forcing Obama to renominate Liu this January. With Democrats controlling fewer seats now, at 53, they are seven short of the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster assuming no Democrats peel off and side with Republicans, which may not be the case for some moderates or those facing tough election battles in 2012.

Liu is a liberal abortion supporter who conservative legal guru Ed Whelan observed was so left-wing that former “White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel initially vetoed” his candidacy for the Ninth Circuit “on the ground that Liu’s left-wing record made him too controversial.” But Whelan says new White House counsel Robert Bauer “eager to please the Left, successfully pushed back.”

In December, Democrats gave up on a vote on Liu as a deal brokered between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with White House officials allowed votes on several less controversial nominees but not Liu.

Family Research Council legislative director Tom McClusky has commented on Liu, saying he is “a firm believer in the rule of international law and has shown nothing but disrespect for the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Burn up those Senate phone lines…every call counts.