nuclear option that if the minority get toot obstreperous, if they do too much filibustering of nominees for the federal district courts and fairly appeals courts, certainly for the supreme court, for all the things that require confirmation on capitol hill in the senate, if the minority got too ob trep prus, they would be threatened with the nuclear option. those threats happened from time to time for a long time. the idea was in response to those threats, they would become less obstreperous and there would be less blocking going on. i this i that worked. but under the obama presidency, if you ve seen the statistics, i think the washington post just recently came out with a chart that showed that under the current president s administration, as much as the filibuster has been used in the past to block nominees, that the rate has doubled. the highest rate that ever was