(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
Ever-sensible Gail Collins, in the NYTimes:
… “If the Democrats proceed to use this nuclear option in this way, it will be Obamacare II,” cried Senator Lamar Alexander on Wednesday. This was in keeping with a brand-new Congressional tradition under which Republicans making remarks on the floor of the House or Senate are required to mention the Affordable Care Act at least once every 35 seconds….
The first nominee to come up for a vote, Patricia Millett, was a sort of double dare. She was an assistant solicitor general during the Bush administration. She had argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court. She volunteers at a homeless shelter. Her husband is a Navy veteran. Her husband was once deployed while Millett was arguing a case before the Supreme Court!
The Republicans blocked her nomination, which made it abundantly clear that the next two — Georgetown Law Professor Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins, an African-American district court judge — weren’t going anywhere either…
Jon Chait, in NYMag, after The Fatal Vote:
…The main reason for this odd, partial clawback of the filibuster is that President Obama has no real legislative agenda that can pass Congress. At the beginning of the year, it seemed plausible that House Republicans might go along with immigration reform, but even that possibility now looks remote. Nothing can pass.
That reality means two things. The first is that President Obama’s second-term agenda runs not through Congress but through his own administrative agencies. His appointees are writing rules for financial reform, housing policy and — the potentially enormous one — climate emissions. Senate Republicans have tried to stymie this agenda by blocking executive-branch appointments, most recently filibustering the nomination of Mel Watt to run the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The executive-branch filibuster has become a primary Republican weapon against Obama’s agenda.
Their next line of defense is the D.C. Circuit, the federal court that handles regulatory cases. If and when the Environmental Protection Agency issues regulations on existing power plants, the D.C. Circuit will rule on their legality. Republicans had announced their intention to block any Obama appointment at all to the court’s three vacant positions in order to protect their party’s functional majority. (The court is currently split evenly, but it sends its overflow caseload to retired judges, who are mostly Republican.) The D.C. Circuit is where Republicans had hoped to block those parts of Obama’s executive agenda they couldn’t gum up by denying the agencies a functioning director….
The longtime counter-threat against the “nuclear option” has always been that the minority party will retaliate by wantonly blocking everything that passes through the Senate. But here is the second way in which the end of Obama’s legislative agenda has forced the nuclear confrontation. With immigration reform dead, or nearly dead, the Senate Republican retaliation amounts to threatening to burn down a building that is already in ashes….
Apart from admiring the glow, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Cervantes
Admiring the glow again.
dmsilev
Some sweet sweet schadenfreude. Check out this from the lead article at RedState:
Yes, in the eyes of the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts, the Senate GOP’s problem is that they’ve been _too cooperative_ with the Democrats.
schrodinger's cat
Who coined this stupid term, nuclear option? Which puditubbie was it?
ranchandsyrup
Moar spreadsheet madness tonight. Watching of the footballs.
Short blog post on a Boards of Canada song that came up on shuffle today.
schrodinger's cat
@dmsilev: They do live in la-la land, don’t they?
Hal
I was looking at the twitters earlier and some people seemed to think they were making the best point ever by pointing out something Reid or Obama said about the filibuster back in 2005 or 2008. How hypocritical of them!
Who gives a fuck what anyone, especially dems said back 5 or 7 years ago? The level of obstruction from the GOP now is historic, and that simply forces the Dems hands. This graph from slog makes that abundantly clear. 82 noms of Obama’s blocked, 86 noms for every other President in US history.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/11/21/one-of-these-presidents-is-not-like-the-other
ET
The headline at NBC is how this “spells doom for Washington.” Like doom already hadn’t already happened.
The whole article just glossed over all the real problems going on in the Senate that have effectively stopped all work going on there. Sort of ignores the elephant(s) in the chamber.
Suffern ACE
Next up, ignoring the debt limit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hal:
All positions must be fixed at all times except when having a fixed position would prevent them from attacking a Democrat.
Howard Beale IV
Oh, the scnadenfrude and rank hypocrisy of the so-called conservatives burns.
IM
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course McConnel switched positions too.
lamh36
Dumb drunk Boehner can’t even get an “anti-Obamacare” stunt right.
Speaker Boehner’s office confirms he has successfully enrolled in Obamacare, 45 mins. after critical blog post – @jparkABC
Now the headline can read “John Boehner Enrolls in Obamacare”.
Suffern ACE
Heck, if I were the president at this point, I’d appoint Holder to the highest possible open judicial position available.
MikeJ
Anyone watching Primary on TCM? Cinema vérité doc about the 1960 Wisconsin Dem primary.
Bill E Pilgrim
@dmsilev: So in this world, Harry Reid and the Democrats resorted to this because they think that Republicans won’t be extremists.
As opposed to the real world, where the Republicans being extremists is why the Democrats did it.
I’m beginning to understand the answer to the question Kos poses here: Senate GOP Blows Itself Up, What the Hell Were They Thinking?
From some clues and hints I’ve seen, they seem to be seeing this as connected to the Affordable Care Act, either indirectly as in “this is just another thing the Democrats shoved down our throats” (they love that metaphor, mysteriously) or in other cases they see it as actually part of the ACA, I’m not entirely clear on how though.
They’ve become emboldened by their own fantasy world, it seems, and in that world (but only there) they think this was actually a good move. Not the Red State crazies, but Boehner et al.
It’s like the good/wise angel on the one shoulder has been chased off by the bad angels who’ve multiplied in some bizarre runaway process so there are thousands of them. Weird.
The Other Bob
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think it was a bunch of Democrats…no joke.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Burn the witch! Burn the witch!
piratedan
@dmsilev: and all of that shit died a painful silent death in the GOP controlled Congress, what a fucking rube.
Comrade Jake
I admit to being quite wrong about this one. I did not think the Dems had it in them.
In any case, I look forward to watching lots of wingnut heads explode over the next couple of days.
Karen in GA
Saints and Falcons. And my dog is confused.
Keith P
@Omnes Omnibus: By that same token, McConnell repeatedly demanded “up-or-down votes” (same phrase, every time, because messaging) in the same time period, yet how his opinion has changed. If this didn’t go down today, when the GOP did regain the Senate, they would have gotten rid of the filibuster completely, and when folks said “Yeah, but…”, they would have come back with a “so what. it’s gone.” Good riddance to the filibuster.
Chris
Obamacare is Obama’s Obamacare!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris: Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare. Don’t they have anything without Obamacare?
Chris
Their response to every fuckup they make will always be “we didn’t fuck up enough.”
Hungry Joe
Serious (I think) questions: Will the GOP retaliate by filibustering any Obama (or future Dem) Supreme Court nominee?
And: Should the GOP regain control of the Senate, will that now mean that no Democratic president can nominate anyone to anything? Are they nutso enough to go that far?
Baud
@Chris:
Win!
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
/Nelson
Ha-ha!
/Nelson
fuckwit
More of this, please. More Harry Reid Spine. More Democrats fighting back. More Democratic judges. More good appointees for Obama’s administrative team.
Hey… what happened to that nominee for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who’s been filibustered for like 4 years now? The dude who was nominated after Warren withdrew to run for Senate? Maybe he can finally get appointed now?
I’m very glad Harry Reid did it. And, I’m glad my knucklehead Senator, Dianne Feinstein, who’s probably been the primary fifth-columnist enabling Rethug obstruction for a decade or more, finally has had enough, and decided it’s time to do something. Sheesh, it took ya long enough.
Karen in GA
@ranchandsyrup: I clicked, I read, I read some more. Congrats on the new little one; and thanks for reminding me about the Raveonettes. I’d meant to find more by them after hearing them on Little Steven’s Underground Garage but never got around to it.
SFAW
@Bill E Pilgrim:
“Spam, eggs, sausage, spam, and Obamacare. That’s got not-so-much Obamacare in it.”
(Bloody vikings!)
ETA: Or, alternatively: “Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA!”
MattR
@lamh36: Did you catch the part where one reason that it took so long was that the Health Line gave up after waiting on hold for 35 minutes when they called Boehner back?
Bill E Pilgrim
@SFAW: Okay look can’t I just have the creeping socialism, Benghazi!!, OMG the debt, Obamacare and eggs, without the Obamacare?
cckids
@Keith P: Read an awesome quote from Mark Twain today (thanks, Sully) that applies to so many Republicans, it is an embarrassment of riches; I’ll say McConnell for today:
“He is one of the most assful persons I have ever met. The times when he had an opportunity to be an ass and failed to take advantage of it were so few that, in a monarchy, they would have entitled him to a decoration.”
God, that man had a way with words.
Mnemosyne
I was all excited because they were promising us FLASH FLOODS! for my drive home, but it’s not even raining yet. Phooey.
(Hey, if you had a new car with all-wheel drive, you’d be excited by the prospect of rain in Southern California, too. When else am I going to use that AWD?)
SFAW
@Suffern ACE:
Yeah, but first, he needs to open an investigation into the charges of seditious behavior by House and Senate Rethugs.
What charges? Right here! – > J’accuse!
Chris
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Odd as it sounds, I think it’s more important for them (their constituents) to be seen opposing Obama at every opportunity, than actually succeeding in doing so. Which is really consistent with their appearance-is-everything approach to the world.
E.G.
Yes, but if you surrender on three judges, you’ll have the entire teabagger community on you in no time flat tearing your throat out for giving in to Obama. It’s only by never giving in on anything than you can go home and say “I did everything I could.” Teabaggers don’t do long term thinking. Like, at all.
(Also, I think at least a few of their congressmen are actually happy with the whole “we oppose Obama and he wins anyway” setup. They get all the public cred from standing up to That One, but since That One wins, the government keeps running and they don’t have to do anything. Win-win).
fuckwit
@Hungry Joe: If they do that, they get in the headlines on the news. They do not want that. What they’ve been doing for 5 years now is silently filibustering at a level below media awareness. The media doesn’t pay attention to all these circuit court judges, and only rarely to high-profile Cabinet appointees like Hagel and Kerry et al. They don’t pay any attention to the EPA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and all the lower-level appointees. So the Rethugs have gotten away with being bullies because the teacher wasn’t looking. If they decide to filibuster a SCOTUS nominee– someone like Kagan or Sotomayor– they’ll have to deal with the media attention to their obstruction. Also, too, $10 says Obama’s next high court nominee is also female– the SCOTUS still isn’t gender-balanced yet– which’ll get to bring the Rethug War on Women narrative back into the spotlight too. The teabaggers will go teabagger, there will be embarassing sexist/racist comments made, and eventually they’ll relent and approve the nominee.
Fair Economist
@Hungry Joe:
The GOP already made it clear that they wouldn’t let any Democratic President appoint anyone to anything anyway, if they could. They’re already obstructing in every way possible. So there was nothing to lose.
And after Grassley’s threat that they’ll blow off the Supreme Court filibuster, it’s pretty much a given the Democrats will constitutionalize any Supreme Court filibuster that might happen in Obama’s term.
dmsilev
Next step I guess is to track down all of the filibustered-forever nominees for various posts who gave up in disgust, ask them if they’re willing to have another go, and submit a en-masse list to the Senate.
ranchandsyrup
@Karen in GA: thanks Karen! Been checking your stuff out too. Good work and great pics. Keep it up. :)
SFAW
@Bill E Pilgrim:
See, I’d rather you’d riffed on the last part of the Spanish Inquisition, where you sentence the Rethugs to be burnt at the stake. (That’s it, I’m off!)
Fair Economist
@fuckwit:
Feinstein and Boxer have been opposing the constitutional option since forever. Most likely it’s them flipping that let Reid do it. Without them it would have been 50-50 and I’ll bet there’s somebody else who would have backed off so, until this week, Reid really didn’t have the votes.
AnneW
Fuck NPR. The announcer at the 3:00 (Central) news brief actually asked if Obama was pushing the change in the Senate rules to draw attention away from the “botched” Obamacare roll-out.
KS in MA
Just got off work and found out about the filibuster thing … and just emailed Harry Reid and thanked him!
Chris
@AnneW:
Even as young as I was, I remember when everyone was saying the same thing about Clinton bombing Iraq (Operation Desert Fox, December 1998) in mid-Lewinski affair.
Funny though, I don’t remember anyone saying anything like that about Bush’s invasion of Iraq to draw attention from the fact that the biggest national security fuckup since Pearl Harbor could be landed squarely at his feet.
Would’ve been unpatriotic, it would’ve.
David Koch
This is Harry Reid’s Katrina!
SFAW
@Chris:
I think the actual word thrown around by Rethugs was “traitors,” but I could be wrong.
agrippa
The GOP brought this upon themselves.
The GOP has no grounds for complaint.
lamh36
@MattR: yep. I saw that part, makes it even more of an EPIC FAIL by Boehners. The man can’t even do a smear competently..smdh.
agrippa
@AnneW:
“Botched Obama care rollout”
too funny.
Eventually, the media will have to bloviate about some other “scandal”.
David Koch
Liberals will one day bitterly regret what they have done
today when Republicans appoint people like Scalia and Bork to the DC bench… oh, wait.
/MSM
Chris
@SFAW:
I refuse to believe that these gentlemen of stature would ever have been so uncivil.
They must’ve had a really good reason if they used words like that. Are you sure the people they were talking about weren’t actually traitors? I think that’s what it must’ve been. Only explanation that makes sense.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris: Well yeah I think it’s clear that it’s a teabagger win and a “moderate” Republican lose, but up until now to some degree Boehner and the others have managed to actually do some real damage (block appointees, etc) by straddling the two, keeping the insanity somewhat in check. With this one, in terms of accomplishing anything legislatively or etc, gaining more power, they’ve completely lost, which means it’s given over entirely to the extreme right-wing political positioning.
Republicans have mostly backed down at the last minute, found some way to try to frame it as a win, and avoided nuking themselves in the foot. Until now.
David Koch
Obama only did this to throw people off the Ben Ghazi trail!
Roxy
Damn I am admiring the glow from the great Golden State. If I smoked I would be in bed with a box of chocolates and taking a long inhale of a cigie and blowing it out real slow. I am so enjoying this right now.
Jeremy
@fuckwit: Richard Cordray already heads the CFPB. A deal was made months ago to move a bunch of executive nominations when Reid threatened to nuke the filibuster.
srv
The WSJ hits a home run:
spectacular.
Mike E
Somebody here mentioned not listening to npr since like 4 months ago, and I am gonna follow suit. Totes. And MSNBC coverage was hilarious today, cutting away from the Senate and subsequent interviews to cover that dreamliner stuck on some runway somewhere.
This was such a natural and overdue move that it will fade quickly into the scenery, despite how hard the Village will try to keep it in rotation.
Kay
@David Koch:
They’re ridiculously over-confident again, county Republicans. They think Obamacare is the end of the Democratic Party. I don’t even engage anymore. I was at an event Tuesday night and I just sit there and nod and they argue both sides. “You think it won’t hurt Democrats? Well it will!”
Splitting Image
@Hungry Joe:
The GOP would have filibustered any Obama (or future Dem) Supreme Court nominee regardless of what Reid had done today.
If Obama appoints any more people to the Supreme Court, it will be to replace Ginsburg, Kennedy, or Scalia. Ginsburg might resign due to ill-health (although she has declared her intentions to stay on), and the other two won’t be leaving in the Obama era unless they are carried out in a box.
The stakes will be high regardless of who is the next person to leave. If Ginsburg (or Breyer) is replaced by a conservative, the future of American history is a teaparty boot on the American head, for the next three decades. If Kennedy or Scalia is replaced by a liberal, then the court’s conservative wing will find itself a minority again.
I don’t think McConnell would commit to filibustering any future Democratic nominations, since his plan is probably to see a GOP president in 2017 who can replace Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer. If that were to happen, then sure, let a Democrat name one if he gets a chance later on. But if a Democrat wins in 2017 and/or 2021, then the GOP would absolutely commit to filbustering them.
Redshirt
Alas, comity died today.
amk
@srv: The 1%ers’ butthurt and their empty impotent threats are a pleasure to watch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith P: I don’t think my snark came through very well.
Baud
@Kay:
Sounds like some of the commenters here.
Roger Moore
@Hungry Joe:
Not a really serious question. They were going to filibuster any Obama nominee to the Supreme Court anyway. If anything, this serves as a warning that the Democrats will blow up the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees if the Republicans refuse to cooperate, and that might reduce the risk of a filibuster rather than increase it.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
When you go into the mountains, of course. We do get snow at the higher elevations around here, you know.
mdblanche
@Chris: This is why not appealing the gay marriage decision may have helped Governor Harkonnen win re-election in New Jersey, but it’s going to come back and stab him with the gom jabbar during the primaries.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hungry Joe:
If the Republicans take the Senate, they wouldn’t need to filibuster nominees, they could just vote them down. The filibuster is a weapon for the minority. And, since the two parties have used it differently, it has a powerful weapon for Republicans, but not Democrats.
Cacti
Great moments in filibuster history:
Strom Thurmond speaks for 24 straight hours to stall passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW: NO one expects the Nuclear Option!!
Mike E
Michael Beschloss on TRMS just cited Trent Lott in 2003 as the origin of “nucular option”.
Mike E
@Cacti: He had an erection for nearly half of that filibuster, according to those present.
Cacti
@Redshirt:
I’d say it died right around the time the Republican House voted to impeach Clinton on blow job charges.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m telling them the Toledo mayor’s race was a bad sign for Kasich. It was two independents, but the incumbent backed Kasich’s Issue 2 in 2011 and labor worked hard and beat him this year as payback. I don’t know if it’s true that it’s a “bad sign” but they believe I know, so it’s fun to say.
It’s a perfectly valid explanation. In theory :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: There are very few situations where the filibuster was used progressively.
SiubhanDuinne
@srv: Wow. That’s pretty fucking unbelievable.
Wait, no, I guess it’s believable. It’s the WSJ, after all.
mdblanche
I see from the Newsmax headlines (why do we have these again?) that Senator Enzi is apparently deploying a nuclear option of his own to out-hawk Liz Cheney while some WSJ guy says President Obama has the US economy on lock-down, but I guess it must have escaped earlier today when the Dow hit a record high.
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: yep. If one of the 5 conservative judges retires, you can bet that they will filibuster anyone to the left of Alito. (And the press will say that whomever the dem nominates is an affront to the tradition of conservatives being in charge of that body).
raven
Whoa, LBJ bitch slapping Richard Russell for not wanting to serve on the Warren Commission is awesome.
SFAW
@srv:
I’ve never been a big “Where’s that damn meteor/asteroid?” kind of guy, but reading insanity like that makes me hope for a surgical meteor strike on the WSJ’s building.
Hill Dweller
@raven:
I loved the “I’m not gonna get the FBI on ya, but…”.
Suffern ACE
@mdblanche: this morning they were on about 100 million people losing their current insurance under Obamacare. That would be everyone who currently works in the private sector. Yep. Next year, all of us who get insurance through work are gonna find ourselves without any coverage.
SFAW
@Suffern ACE:
Only if Obama nominates someone. But it seems clear that he will not be allowed to do so, and that power will lie with Lindsey Graham or Crazy Canadian-Cubano Cabron Cruz (Caramba!)
JPL
@Karen in GA: That was so cute. The dog that I adopted a month ago has been caught on the kitchen table, coffee table, back of the sofa and on the arms of the sofa. I’m sure that he would be on that perch. He does pee while standing on his two front paws and walking. He’s not a sissy that lifts just one leg. In the morning he sometimes takes sixteen steps on his front paws with his back paws in the air. The rest of the day he only takes four or five steps. I so need a youtube of this. In his previous life, he was on Dave Letterman.
Suffern ACE
@Splitting Image: the GOP in my guesstimate is going to retaliate by shutting down the government this spiring.
Yatsuno
@SiubhanDuinne: Uncle Rupert is most put out. Most put out I say!
Has anyone hooked a generator to the body of David Broder yet?
raven
@Hill Dweller: I don’t like LBJ one bit but that was great.
Kay
@srv:
So sick of that threat. There’s never any mention of what conservative judges do to environmental protections or labor and consumer rights or voting rights or regulation of business interests. It’s like they’re all up there focused like a laser on “moral issues” which is such a lie. Abortion is the least of my worries with John Roberts. He’ll get to abortion well after he hands the whole country over to 15 billionaires.
Mike E
@Hill Dweller: “Or make you take in-person notes while I sit on a White House toilet.” Like he made Doris Kearns Goodwin do a few years later.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: I respect the concept of comity, and indeed, even the practice of it, quite a lot. However, it has been missing for a long time, thanks to our “friends”, Republicans.
I’d like comity to return some day, but I don’t think it will be with Republicans.
I, Floridian
@ranchandsyrup: Dayvan Cowboy!
(Admire your taste in music.)
Mike E
@Redshirt: It’ll return right after the Rapture.
Heliopause
Did anybody see ABC News tonight? Jonathan Karl’s story (1) implied that all filibusters are talking filibusters and (2) claimed that Republicans “tried but failed” to do the same thing in 2005.
Suffern ACE
@Heliopause: I wish frank Capra had never made that movie.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: I feel that way about many Capra movies.
Hill Dweller
@Heliopause: Jonathan Karl is both dumb and a Republican plant.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s not a threat when they’ve been successfully doing the thing they’re threatening to do for at least the last 30 years.
Kay
If it works in California it should be able to work anywhere:
This is interesting:
So there should be room for growth because they’re not even tapping into the “gets a subsidy, are uninsured” crowd yet, who will be harder to reach.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: federalist society members have really had troubles getting on the courts. I swear, most of them have ended up without prospects working at Duncan Donuts thanks to Democratic Party filibusters against them.
schrodinger's cat
@Heliopause: He is a Republican hack.
Bubblegum Tate
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, the wingnuts did, but then it didn’t poll well, so they tried to change it to “constitutional option.” It didn’t work, obviously.
Yatsuno
@Kay: BUT NOOT SEZ IT HAZ FAIL!!! Never mind the fact that those under 26 are already part of the actuarial numbers because being on insurance gets them into an insurance pool.
catclub
@Omnes Omnibus: “they wouldn’t need to filibuster nominees, they could just vote them down.”
I think after seven or eight, fully qualified cabinet appointees get voted down, the nation will notice.
The filibuster provides more cover, since it is much more inside baseball-y. The headlines are “Democrats fail to nominate X as Secdef.” Not “GOP votes down X as Secdef.”
There will still not be enough cover for Cabinet departments or Supreme Court – too prominent.
David in NY
@Cacti: More great moments in filibuster history: 1922, anti-lynching bill passes House overwhelmingly, filibustered in Senate. Threat of filibuster prevents passage of anti-lynching bills over the next four decades, in which hundreds are lynched.
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
You knew the WSJ was still holding onto a grudge over this, though:
I stopped reading it around 2006 but I know I could pick it up today and they’d still be ranting about either Bolton or Bork. Or Clarence Thomas! Democrats destroyed that man. He’s a greeter at Wal Mart now. Such a shame.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Mnemosyne:
We’ve got the snow tires on the vue and the cruze (both FWD) and I’ve got summer tires on my 99 legacy. It’s been raining, and the FWD cars have been spinning the tires at starts. Have not had single slip in the subie. You really don’t know it’s working. I love subarus.
BOT: I’m pleased by this. How are the firebaggers holding up?
? Martin
@srv:
Yes, we’ll regret losing the tool that allowed us to keep Clarence Thomas off of the Supreme Court.
Oh, wait…
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Move to Maine, then you can use it six months a year.
ETA: Seriously, it is the official car of ME. My first car was a Subaru.
catclub
@Cacti: Others have pointed out that the filibuster never seems to be associated with something good in our history. Funny that.
Kay
@Yatsuno:
Everyone I’ve helped with it so far qualifies for Medicaid, with the exception of one young man. I thought these self-employed painters and landscapers and window washers were making more money than that. It’s a little depressing.
jl
Don’t have time to read all the comments. Thought I would say that think it is a bad idea, a horrible development, and creates great risks to protection of rights of the minority in a democracy.
If the extremist wing of the GOP can win Senate majority, they will use this development for evil not for good.
On other hand, Yeebus, what are you going to do? The vile extremist GOP is using the filibuster power to get much of their way in any case, and they don’t even have to win a majority of the seats to do that. And the Democrats have wimped out in going toe to toe on GOP extremist obstructionism.
A bad day, but the way things are going, maybe it had to happen.
I guess have to use the precedent for more filibuster reform by possible future GOP Senate majority to GOTV on Democratic voters.
David Koch
Anyone see Elizabeth Warren’s virtuoso performance last night on Maddow?
Tell me how she doesn’t win the nomination? I know people will say Clinton has a 40 point lead and therefore she’s inevitable, but she had 40 pt lead on Edwards and Obama in 2008 and she still ended up losing.
Now Hillbots supported Hillary 4 years ago due to identity politics. Nothing wrong with that, women have experience great discrimination, so it’s natural to support another women, the same way Catholics flocked to Kennedy. But what will they do now when the contest is between two women of a similar age — will they support progressive champion Warren or will they stick with Hillary in order to claim vindication of their 2008 complaints?
Baud
@David Koch:
She doesn’t run?
Mike E
@Bubblegum Tate: Trent Lott, c. 2003.
jl
@catclub: It is true that the filibuster has often been used to protect vested interests and to try to stall or reverse reforms.
But how corrupt, racist, sexist and generally nasty politicians, both Democrat and GOP, have used it in the past is past. What the current racist and reactionary GOP will do with the filibuster rules if they gain the Senate in the next couple of election cycles is what needs to guide decision making now.
So, I don’t like it, but the GOP has enough seats to present only bad alternatives right now.
Need to win more elections, that is the way to reallyl fix things up right. But that is easier said than done.
Suffern ACE
@catclub: yep. It is very likely that that dam project Mr. Smith was talking against was a necessary public works project that would have led to jobs in the community and brought inexpensive electricity to help the farmers modernize without taking out loans from eastern banking interests. That Smith guy actually sucks rocks.
Baud
@catclub:
I recall that the Dems were able to use it a few times in the Bush years to stop some crappy legislation. On the whole, however, I think it’s more of a GOP weapon than a Democratic one.
David in NY
@Suffern ACE: “federalist society members have really had troubles getting on the courts” Name them. On the Second Circuit, you’ve got confirmed — Ralph Winter, Dennis Jacobs and probably a couple of others.
Kay
@Yatsuno:
This is the Gingrich health care plan:
This is what pundits think is “smart”, this mish-mash of…words. Ugh. I can HEAR him, how he loves the sound of his own voice and says “AMURRicans”.
Suffern ACE
@David Koch: ok. I know you were 12 then, but some of us remember her Husbands term and her role in it very positively. I didn’t actually grow to hate the Clinton people (save the vile Dick Morris) until after they were out of office. Sorry, but a lot of people who weren’t white women voted for her in the primary. Almost 1/2 if I recall.
Jeremy
@jl: If you really believed that the GOP would not do the same thing in the same situation then I have some ocean front property to sell you in Arizona. The republicans threatened to do the same thing when Bush was president but the democrats cut a deal, the republicans didn’t.
Something had to be done so all this “it’s a bad day” stuff is nonsense. The best way to stop the republicans is winning elections and based on their radical actions/ policies it looks like they have given up on winning the presidency.
Villago Delenda Est
@ET:
If the doom includes exterminating the vermin of the Village, it’s a good thing.
jl
@Kay: Newt is right as he always it. I mean, look, if only that sad inadequate paleio liberal Obama had looked at the problem simultaneoulsy from different (edit: INTERSECTING) dimensions at multiple levels, health care would have been fixed by now.
(sorry, Newt specified the critical step of multiple INTERSECTING dimensions. That is key. Sorry I forgot that critical step in the recipe)
I just don’t understand why people do not follow the simple step-by-step instructions on how to git ‘er done that Newt graciously and mercifully shares with us.
I heard his next book is “Bell that Cat!” But sadly, I predict that, again(!) no one will listen.
Kay
@Yatsuno:
And you know it doesn’t matter. If it does work Republicans will just continue to say it doesn’t work, forever.
Bob Dole voted against Medicare and he was still saying he was right about that in 1993.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
They’d do it anyway no matter what happened today.
Reid had basically no choice.
jl
@Jeremy: I guess I see more threats in the approach to reform the Democrats used today than you do. So, we disagree.
But, dude, I said it was probably the best of the bad alternatives that the Senate GOP has the power to impose on the country, and that winning more elections is the best solution.
So, whatever.
catclub
@jl: “Thought I would say that think it is a bad idea, a horrible development, and creates great risks to protection of rights of the minority in a democracy.”
I am sure the Japanese internees agree, filibuster sure saved them. And blacks under Jim Crow.
Native Americans. Communists. All protected by wise application of the filibuster against injustice.
Oh, you mean the minority of rich white folks who suffer under equality.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: yes, because outsourcing your diagnosis to a help desk in Thailand where they’ll look up your problem with WebMD is what the uninsured really need.
Cacti
@David in NY:
Continued…
Passage was again attempted in 1923 and 1924, until it was finally abandoned altogether.
Another anti-lynching bill would not be considered by the Senate until 1935, which was also filibustered by the Dixiecrat bloc.
jl
@catclub: OK fine.Yeah, I sure do approve of how the filibuster has been used in the past. That is totally obvious from my comments.
/snark
Kay
@jl:
Remember when they were falling all over his plan to modernize medical records? I mean, it’s FINE but it’s hardly genius or ground-breaking. Basically he was proposing a bunch of federal money to get the for-profit health care system to bring their record-keeping up to where every other business entity was. I’m still not clear on why we have to pay them to do that. The last time I looked, my local “medical group” seemed like they were clearing enough to “modernize” their own records. The CEO of our for-profit hospital is in the top 5% of earners in this county.
Cacti
More great moments in filibuster history:
1938 – the Dixiecrat bloc of the US Senate filibusters the Wagner-Van Nuys anti-lynching bill and prevents it from ever coming to a vote.
Belafon
@David Koch: Easy: She doesn’t run.
Ken
Comity tomorrow, comedy tonight.
PaulW
Comity tomorrow? But that’s the 50th anniversary of the Who Shot JFK guessing game!
Speaking of which, here’s my take :)
http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2013/11/anniversary-of-ultimate-american.html
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Roger Moore:
Dude, I moved to Southern California to get AWAY from the cold and snow. Why would I seek it out voluntarily?
Anne Laurie
@David Koch: Okay, now we have the official postion of the Republican ratfvckers: Stop Sen. Warren from doing what she’s best at, in the next step of your eternal war against HIllary Clinton.
You are the least convincing ‘progressive’ since UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH, and I personally hope to be there when kharma bites you in the arse.
Yatsuno
@Belafon: More than that: she signed a letter endoring the Hillbot saying she would support Clinton’s run. Kinda undercuts any sort of wood the Warren folks would be getting under Liz 2016.
Plus I want her voice in the Senate. She’s already doing amazing work right where she is.
Kay
@David Koch:
Chris Redfern already told Ohio Democrats he doesn’t want a bloody primary, if “we are united!” just interjected randomly every time he speaks is what that means, and I think it is.
It doesn’t matter, though. No one will listen to him. I myself don’t think Warren will run but if she doesn’t it won’t be because Clinton ordered her not to.
mainmata
@dmsilev: With the wingnut HOR in place for many years to come, no legislation except useless holiday celebrations will come out of the Congress. So the only game n the Senate will be appointments for several years. Government legislation has ceased unless it is extreme right wing legislation, which won’t happen.
Belafon
@Yatsuno: Yeah, I thought about including the part about Warren endorsing Clinton, but decided to keep my response short. I, too, think the best place for her is the Senate.
kc
@jl:
I feel you, but the Republicans are completely without scruples. It had to be done.
ranchandsyrup
@I, Floridian: Love that one! Campfire headphase is really good.
Suffern ACE
@mainmata: yep. We need to hope that there aren’t any large scale disasters for three years, because no one is getting emergency relief.
HL_Guy
@Roger Moore: Yes, it is perfect strategy to only take away the filibuster ‘by parts.’ I have lots of experience with children who are acting up. You *never* take away all their toys at once, you take them away one at a time. You have to leave them feeling like they have something left to lose… or they’ll act like they have nothing to lose. That’s the tantrum you don’t want to see. The Senate GOP had 3 toys: legislative filibuster, SC filibuster, and lower-level-nom filibuster. They just lost the 3rd one. They may eventually lose the other two, but the promise of keeping them may keep them in line for regular business.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@jl:
Thanks for breaking the overton window, ass.
cckids
@Kay:
THIS. Just ONE fricking time I’d love someone who is interviewing him to turn to him & say “Exactly what does that mean? Can you give me 3 concrete examples?”
Now, I’m sure Newt wouldn’t turn into a stammering mess, because I’m sure he’ll still be bloviating 10 minutes after his heart stops, but I know he can’t get into actual facts and solutions.
David Koch
@Anne Laurie: So I’ve been defending Obama on this blog for years because I’m really a republican plant. Got it.
Rachel Maddow was practically begging Warren to run last night, is Rachel also a republican plant trying to stop Warren from what she does best in her eternal war against Hillary?
You are going to have to find a better way to defend Hillary then smear Warren’s supporters with McCarthyism.
David Koch
@Anne Laurie: Here’s more of my deep cover republican rat fucking, good work, Senator McCarthy.
http://my.nymag.com/David_koch/profile/
xian
@srv: the next GOP president… who, Rubio? Rand? Cruz?
xian
@jl: geez, grow a spine. acting nice to the GOP isn’t going to prevent them from fucking us if they can.
better that elections have clear consequences.
xian
@David in NY: adjust your snarkmeter
A Humble Lurker
@Anne Laurie:
Just stop. Stop ragging on the fake Koch. You really are embarrassing yourself. All you gotta do is search the name on Balloon Juice to see that theory’s worth less than the paper it was printed on. And I don’t even agree that Warren should run.
Matt McIrvin
@HL_Guy: I liked it when McConnell promised he’d repeal the other forms of filibuster when the Republicans got a Senate majority, and Reid basically said “Okay!”
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@jl:
If the GOP got the senate majority they would change the rules anyway.
How could one have predicted you would be here concern trolling this issue?
Dennis
Thanks for ruining the moment for me :-). Here I was thinking finally the Dems are getting some spine and you inform me that “hooray, we win, Obama gets to to appoint a judge who worked for Bush!”
This is why we have been losing for years. It is just so asymmetrical–try to imagine Bush even nominating someone who worked for Clinton. When they win elections, the courts veer hard right; when we win the courts veer….nowhere (or even right, sometimes.)
By some measures, Souter (appointed by GHW Bush) and Stevens (appointed by Ford) were more liberal than Elena Kagan!
elftx
Suddenly I am rather liking the idea of Mrs. Clinton running for Prez.
.After yesterday, what a way to really stick it to them.
And Warren serves the country much better in the Senate where I hope she remains for awhile.
Cervantes
@Cacti: I’d say [comity] died right around the time the Republican House voted to impeach Clinton on blow job charges.
No, if it died, it died a few years before that with the rise of Newt Gingrich.
Cervantes
@jl: Thought I would say that think [the elimination of the filibuster for most nominations but not legislation] is a bad idea, a horrible development, and creates great risks to protection of rights of the minority in a democracy.
OK, can you please explain why you think so? Preferably with examples of how the filibuster has actually been used in the past for the “protection of rights of the minority”? Thanks.
Cervantes
@Anne Laurie: Asking whether Warren might beat Clinton for the nomination — in particular, asking the following:
seems to upset you. I don’t understand why (which does not mean I’m criticizing).
I do understand resenting the use of such terms as “Hillbot.” Juvenile and unconvincing, I agree.* But is that what upsets you? Or is it the implication that Warren is more progressive than Clinton? Or the mere suggestion that Clinton should not be the candidate by default? Or something else?
(And not that it matters, but I think Warren and Clinton are both good public servants.)
* Possibly as juvenile and unconvincing as calling someone a “Republican ratfvcker” with so little evidence.
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin: I liked it when McConnell promised he’d repeal the other forms of filibuster when the Republicans got a Senate majority, and Reid basically said “Okay!”
What I saw Reid say was “Why should we care?” — which is very nicely put: it’s not the Democrats who have been abusing filibusters.
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin: I liked it when McConnell promised he’d repeal the other forms of filibuster when the Republicans got a Senate majority, and Reid basically said “Okay!”
What I saw Reid say was “Why should we care?” — which is very nicely put: it’s not the Democrats who have been abusing filibusters.
Cervantes
@Dennis:
Don’t believe everything you read. Millett is one of the good ones. She clerked for a Carter appointee. She worked in the Clinton Justice Department. And the position mentioned above is one she held from the Clinton years into 2007 — so it would be more appropriate to say that she was so good at her job even Bush and Ashcroft and Gonzalez couldn’t manage to fire her.
Tom Betz
@schrodinger’s cat: In partial answer to your question, now that he’s long dead, you can enjoy this 2005 William Safire column on the subject.
In brief: