# Another offensive TV spot from Moveonpac. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698 "2005-05-20T03:40:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/61 "2005-05-21T00:48:16Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > You are so damn _cute_ when you’re having hysterics. Tell me Mr. Little, what exactly are the major changes that you see coming in the next 3 years, and if they are changes that the majority of Americans voted for, why you feel that you and people like you (a minority) have the right to say that they shouldn’t be made? Are you suggesting you and the rightwingnuts did not complain when you were in the minority? :wally ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/62 "2005-05-21T00:56:03Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I am not aware of a precedent for one party filibustering _in order to prevent that vote from happening_. > [@](#): > > The Senate was launched on a full-blown filibuster, with one South Carolina senator consuming time by reading “long passages of James F. Byrnes’s memoirs in a thick Southern accent,” according to a newspaper account. > That four-day talkathon in September 1968 has largely been forgotten. But some Senate Democrats want to bring it back to mind to counter a key Republican attack against their stalling tactics that have blocked confirmation votes for several of President Bush’s most conservative judicial nominees. The GOP claim, asserted in speeches, articles and interviews, is that filibusters against judicial nominees are unprecedented. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45149-2005Mar17.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45149-2005Mar17.html) Now you are. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/63 "2005-05-21T00:58:17Z")
> [@](#): > > changes that the majority of Americans voted for 30.7% of eligible voters does not a majority make. [http://elections.gmu.edu/voter\_turnout.htm](http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/64 "2005-05-21T01:14:33Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > Are you suggesting you and the rightwingnuts did not complain when you were in the minority? :wally When exactly was I ever a rightwing nutjob? Was it when I was voting for Clinton or when I voted for Kerry? > [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy)…-2005Mar17.html > > Now you are. Once in 200 plus years is a pretty weak “precident”, doncha think? > [@Squink](#): > > 30.7% of eligible voters does not a majority make. > [http://elections.gmu.edu/voter\_turnout.htm](http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm) Peope who don’t bother to vote don’t concern me. If they can’t be arsed to get out and vote, than their opinions are, to my mind, moot. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/65 "2005-05-21T01:17:18Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Once in 200 plus years is a pretty weak “precident”, doncha think? :rolleyes: Douchebag. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/66 "2005-05-21T01:18:05Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Traditionally, judicial nominees come from the President and are subject to an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. > [@rjung](#): > > Cite for the “traditionally,” please. It’s certainly not unprecedented for the Senate Judiciary Committee to block judicial nominees so they can’t get a chance for a full vote by the Senate – the Republicans squelched over sixty of Bill Clinton’s nominees that way. > [@Weirddave](#): > > So tell me rjung, is the issue here keeping nominees in committee? Because if it is, than you have just made an on topic point. It’s not? Well than what the fuck are you bringing it up for? Lessee: “judicial nominees come from the President…are subjected to an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.” Are you claiming that keeping nominees bottled up in committee indefinitely is the same as giving them an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate? If not, **rjung** is on topic. > [@Weirddave](#): > > I am not aware of a precedent for one party filibustering _in order to prevent that vote from happening_. > [@rjung](#): > > Does Bill Frist filibustering against Clinton nominee Richard Paez count? > [@Weirddave](#): > > #1. That as an attempt to filibuster, I don’t believe it actually worked. If I’ve remembered that incorrectly, well, see point #2 Worked or not, it’s still a precedent. > [@](#): > > #2 Rjung, I know this is like asking a cow to breath water, but I’ll try again anyway. Just once try thinking with your brain and not jerking with your knee. If Republicans filibustered a nominee to prevent a floor vote, now or in the future, than that was/will be just as wrong as the Democrats doing it right now. You react to anyone who disagrees with you as if they are a blind partisan shill for the radical right, and that’s how you couch your diatribes. As I’ve told you time and again, I’m not even a Republican, nor am I from Tennessee. So tell me, please, what exactly anything Bill Frist does has to do with me. You claimed there was no precedent. It’s a precedent, regardless of what one thinks of it. > [@](#): > > #3 Am I to assume from your posts that you heartily approve of Senator Frist’s attempting to filibuster a judicial nominee in 1996 then? If you don’t, then you’re a hypocrite. Whether **rjung** was in favor of that particular filibuster or not, it’s still a precedent. FWIW, one can believe the existence of the filibuster is a good thing, while disagreeing with some of the uses it’s put to. Just as one can think the SDMB is a good thing, while (without any contradiction whatsoever) wishing that certain SDMB members would not bother to renew. > [@](#): > > What’s democratic about that, anyway? There are many different expressions of democratic government. Absolute majority rule (a.k.a. “tyranny of the majority”) is only one of them, and one can consider oneself a small-d democrat while staunchly opposing the removal of checks on a legislative majority’s power. > [@](#): > > All the Democrats are fighting for is a tool to prevent the Senate as a whole from voting on the nominees, as the Constitution says they are supposed to do. I think **elucidator** has already made the point I was going to about this. The Constitution is nowhere near that specific; if I’m allowed similar latitude to read meanings into other Constitutional passages, I can make the Constitution mean pretty much what I want it to mean. But I have no interest in sitting on that particular wall. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/67 "2005-05-21T01:22:23Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Once in 200 plus years is a pretty weak “precident”, doncha think? You claimed there wasn’t a precedent. You’ve been given two. Weak or strong has nothing to do with it. Either they’re precedents, or they’re not. And filibustering a nominee for Chief Justice is a pretty damned strong precedent, IMHO, as long as the subject is the filibustering of court nominees. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/68 "2005-05-21T01:24:12Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Peope who don’t bother to vote don’t concern me. If they can’t be arsed to get out and vote, than their opinions are, to my mind, moot. Fortunately, the meaning of ‘majority’ is completely independent of your personal feelings on the matter. 30.7% is not a majority. ---
**Author:** ![Barely\_Adequate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Barely\_Adequate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barely_Adequate)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/69 "2005-05-21T01:32:34Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > **Jackmannii:** _Rick Santorum has just pulled ahead of Bill Frist in the race for Complete G.O.P. Jerk._ > > Hey, I still like DeLay in that race, but I agree that Santorum and Frist are both very strong competitors. Let’s not forget that Norm Coleman is desperately vying for recognition on this list. The hits just keep on coming… -Richard ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/70 "2005-05-21T01:42:52Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > You claimed there wasn’t a precedent. You’ve been given two. Weak or strong has nothing to do with it. Either they’re precedents, or they’re not. > > And filibustering a nominee for Chief Justice is a pretty damned strong precedent, IMHO, as long as the subject is the filibustering of court nominees. No I haven’t, I’ve been given one. Once reminded of it, I freely admitted hat it was a precedent, but I classified that one single instance as “a pretty weak precedent”. Once is pretty weak. You can type the word “precedent” all you want and it won’t change that. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > Lessee: “judicial nominees come from the President…are subjected to an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.” > > Are you claiming that keeping nominees bottled up in committee indefinitely is the same as giving them an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate? If not, rjung is on topic. No, but blocking things in committee, unlike filibustering judicial nominees, is a long standing political dirty trick that has been used by both sides innumerable times. I personally don’t like it when either side uses the tactic, but that’s not the subject of this thread. On a slight tangent, RT, since you are as blind a Democratic partisan as we have on these boards, I’d like to ask you a question. The Dems are spending all this time and effort in an attempt to use unusual methods to block a double handful of mere Circuit Court judges. Meanwhile, Rehnquist is likely to step down soon, and he might not be the only Supreme to pack it in before '08. Do you think it wise for the Dems to blow all of this political capitol on a mere skirmish when the war is coming down the pike? I think you’re playing right into the Republican’s hands, the public isn’t going to want to see the same type of government by obstruction, yet again, in a year or two, and the stakes will be much higher then. If Rehnquist times his retirement right, the backlash might just be strong enough to kill a Democratic resurgence in the races of '06. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > Just as one can think the SDMB is a good thing, while (without any contradiction whatsoever) wishing that certain SDMB members would not bother to renew. _kiss_ Sorry sweet pea, your side hasn’t won yet, I still am able to go out and earn a living and spend the money on what I chose, not what the government says I can. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/71 "2005-05-21T02:31:27Z")
**Weirddave** , you have yet to answer my question: > [@This Year's Model](#): > > Care to point out to me exactly where the constitution specifies the procedure the Senate must follow in approving or rejecting nominees? 'Cause I’m not finding it. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/72 "2005-05-21T02:41:16Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > When exactly was I ever a rightwing nutjob? Was it when I was voting for Clinton or when I voted for Kerry? I might add that I cannot at all understand how someone who espouses the views that you do on this message board could have possibly voted for Kerry. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/73 "2005-05-21T03:29:17Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > No I haven’t, I’ve been given one. Once reminded of it, I freely admitted hat it was a precedent, but I classified that one single instance as “a pretty weak precedent”. Once is pretty weak. You can type the word “precedent” all you want and it won’t change that. There’s the one **rjung** provided, and there’s the one **Hentor** provided. Which one are you claiming wasn’t a precedent? > [@](#): > > No, but blocking things in committee, unlike filibustering judicial nominees, is a long standing political dirty trick that has been used by both sides innumerable times. I personally don’t like it when either side uses the tactic, but that’s not the subject of this thread. The subject of the thread is an ad that the OP thought played on the guy in Tiannenmen Square. The subject of the immediate discussion is your claim that the President has traditionally gotten an up-or-down vote by the full Senate on his judicial nominees. Seems you’re acknowledging that that isn’t so after all. It’s very good of you to concede the point. > [@](#): > > I still am able to go out and earn a living That’s a relief to Gingy, I’m sure. > [@](#): > > and spend the money on what I chose, not what the government says I can. Y’know, for a guy who claims to side with the Democrats, you sure have a funny idea of what the party stands for. (Admittedly, that’s when it has the courage to stand for much of anything, but that’s another story.) Shorter Weirddave: ‘I voted for Kerry, but if he’d won, the government would dictate my every decision. And I’m really on the same side as you liberals, but I’m against you on everything from the war to Social Security to judicial filibusters.’ Whatever, dude. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/74 "2005-05-21T03:45:05Z")
> [@](#): > > All the Democrats are fighting for is a tool to prevent the Senate as a whole from voting on the nominees, as the Constitution says they are supposed to do. As others have said, the Constitution says no such thing. It says that the Senate must give its advice and consent, but it doesn’t specify how it must do that, exactly. The Constitution is also pretty clear that the Senate gets to make its own rules. The rules that the Senate has set include the filibuster, and it requires a 2/3 majority vote to change those rules. That’s why the Crybaby Option requires that they rule the filibuster to actually be unconstitutional. So the questions are: 1.) Why does the “advice and consent” language necessarily mean a full Senate vote? 2.) If it does, doesn’t it mean that everything else that has ever been done in the Senate other than full up-or-down votes is equally unconstitutional? Doesn’t it render the whole idea of Senate committees unconstitutional? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/75 "2005-05-21T04:36:58Z")
**RT** you fucking moron, I take each issue on a case by case basis and decide how I feel based upon it’s merits. Yes, I think one of the biggest problems facing this country is liberals determined to “vote everybody rich” and turn necessity social safety nets into bloated entitlement programs. I think gun control is a supremely flawed idea, and I’ve yet to hear an argument for it that didn’t boil down to “I’m afraid of guns”. I support the war in Iraq, and I think that ousting other dictators around the world, by force if necessary, should be a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy (I actually believe that the first world as a whole should pursue this policy, but it’s not going to). I think the U.S could cut at least 25% out of the federal budget and not seriously impact anyone negatively. I think a flat tax is totally fair, I see no reason to penalize rich and successful people just because I’m not. I’ll even go one better and say that I think all deductions should be eliminated. The government should take X% of everyones check, and you get the rest(with poverty level incomes excluded) This % would be much lower than most people pay now. I think some crimes are inexcusable, and that the death penalty is a good thing in those cases. Social Security should be means tested and anyone making over 50K/year without it should be ineligible. OTOH I think that the government does not belong in anyone’s bedroom. I believe that gays should be allowed to marry and divorce with the same rights and responsibilities that traditional couples have. I hate the religious right. I don’t think that religion of any stripe has any business being the basis for secular laws, but at the same time I support the full and unquestioned right of each individual to worship as he or she sees fit. I think Medicare benefits need to be expanded, and government should expand the programs available for indigent or sick people who can’t get insurance currently. I believe in the absolute freedom of the press, and of the people’s right to freely demonstrate is sacrosanct (this does not mean that anyone can demonstrate for anything anywhere they feel the urge) I think many drugs should be legalized. I think that mandatory minimum sentences are a bad idea, and that “zero tolerance” is just another term for “zero thought”. I think most public obscenity standards are stupid, and are generally nothing more than a way for prudes to force their insecurities on others. I believe in expanded funding for the arts. Now, I know all of this thinking about individual issues based upon their specific merits is foreign to you in your comfortable limited little world of lockstep partisan groupthink, but tell me, am I a liberal or a conservative? How about you, **This Year’s Model**? You don’t understand how I could have voted for Kerry. I very nearly didn’t, it was about a 50.0000001/49.9999999 decision, I disliked both candidates. Who _should_ I have voted for, huh? And why? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/76 "2005-05-21T04:52:09Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > #1. That as an attempt to filibuster, I don’t believe it actually worked. . So _attempted_ filibuster is okeydokey? We only want to gripe when it’s successfull? I’m not trying to be an asshole, here. I’m just having trouble seeing the point. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/77 "2005-05-21T05:22:08Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > Elucidator, please stop referring to **Evil One** as **Eve**. You’re confusing the hell out of me. How 'bout **Evi**? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/78 "2005-05-21T05:35:42Z")
_EViiiiiiitta! Eviiiiiita!_ ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/79 "2005-05-21T05:45:43Z")
:: **Evil One** steps out onto the balcony, hair perfectly coifed, makeup freshly applied, sequinned gown glittering in the spotlights :: Don’t cry for me, **'lucidator** The truth is I never bought it. All through my watching The ad’s existence I kept exclaiming, “Don’t keep comparing!” ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698/80 "2005-05-21T06:30:06Z")
I’d like to say that **Weirddave** looks so cute when he’s trying to weasel out of (yet another) corner, but since heis efforts are inevitably neither cute nor clever nor amusing, the only word left is “pathetic.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-offensive-tv-spot-from-moveonpac/304698.md?page=5)