Actually, it does go somewhere: it’s your post #264, in a Reply box. That’s it. Not sure how that answers your question, needless to say.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16868582&postcount=153
And House is a different matter than the “nuclear option” being discussed in this thread. You want to discuss that, start a thread.
Oh give me a fucking break, the “rushed through” bullshit is the most transparently false sort of fox news talking point created out of thin air. The endless debates and parliamentary battles were in the news for months and months. The Republicans were asked for their input a thousand times, trying to come to some sort of bipartisan solution that would be acceptable to both sides. The Republicans tried to hamstring it and then voted against it anyway. It’s just a convenient, representative example. The Republicans have made it a goal to obstruct and otherwise impair government in any way they can. I have no idea how you apologists can seriously pretend that the extremely obvious isn’t true. You don’t deserve to have a place in the discussion if you can’t even acknowledge what would be obvious to anyone. You’re Baghdad Bob saying “American troops? What American troops? They’re not even on this continent!” as tanks roll up behind him.
Oh, I know, what a collosal fuckup. A website launch was botched, so some people may not end up being able to get access to health care that they should’ve. Instead, we should’ve scrapped the whole idea and made sure that none of those people could get access to health care. That would be the best outcome, clearly.
No, it’s not. Period. This action wasn’t precipitated solely by the actions of the Republicans in the Senate, it was a reaction to what the Republicans have done with Congress. They are not separable. You’ve been told repeatedly that you are cherry picking numbers and actions in your posts and this is an additional reason why your argument comes across as false and hypocritical. The omission of what the House has done is conspicable by its absence, and the failure to address it keeps growing until it overshadows everything else you say.
Your argument boils down to heads we win, tails you lose. You hate the idea that the coin might have two equal sides. We understand why you want it that way, but you have to understand why we’re laughing at your insisting upon it as a serious political or philosophical proposition.
You have a MASSIVE bill, one that affects one sixth of the economy, Don’t you think it’s worth reading the final version with all the changes, mark-ups and amendments in place?
And let me turn the question to you: what would have been the downside of doing that? Senators would merely have been placing a more informed vote, right? And isn’t that a good thing?
No. We should have come up with another plan. I agree something had to be done. But you do the easy stuff first: tort reform, allowing insurance to be purchased over state lines, expanding health savings accounts, putting an end to, . Doing all those things would have improved the situation and made health insurance more affordable. That would have reduced the number of uninsured. And if we could get the number of uninsured down small enough, the problem we originally faced might have been a much easier problem to solve. One that wouldn’t require such a massive change to an entire industry that people depend on.
And you know, what, if all those things were tweaked and they didn’t make a big enough dent, THEN you’d have stronger ground to stand on arguing for a change as drastic as what we have now. Or maybe even a greater change.
You’ve been working on your great American novel. Right before your deadline, you change the name of a background character to Steve. You change the town the protagonist stops at in chapter 15 to Millwood. You alter the spelling of the protagonist’s high school.
Question: Do you have to re-read the whole novel?
It was a political necessity, because the GOP refused to give a single vote, because they’re more interested in hurting Obama than helping Americans.
Saves less than 2 % of health care spending. And when the doctors amputate the wrong leg, you have limits to what you can sue for.
This means that the state with the lowest regulations would get all the insurance companies. States lines only works if you have strong national regulations. Like Obamacare does.
Health savings accounts don’t help the poor. Or the middle class for that matter.
You are factually wrong.
Yeah, sure.
The downside would be that it would never get passed because it was obstructed by parliamentary tricks and a there was a timetable to use those same tricks to pass it. You’re right, if there was a well-meaning opposition who wanted what was best for the country and sincerely wanted to come to a reasonable solution that everyone could agree upon, then yes, more debate could’ve been useful.
The democrats invited the republicans to play along at every stage of the bill, to contribute or make proposals. The republicans gave up their position as being the well-meaning, loyal opposition and instead decided that they would simply oppose anything the democrats tried to do, even if they thought it would be for the best. What actually happens clearly shows that the republicans were unwilling to budge at all, which is consistent with their post-2008 strategy, which is to obstruct, hold the country hostage for the people who’ve bought them (the debt ceiling “crisis” is amongst the most disgusting political acts in American history), and just generally try to make government fail so they can swoop in and say “see, government doesn’t work! Bring back the Gilded age!”
The Republican counter-proposal during the long lead up to health care reform was a 1 page outline of generic talking points with no specific plans whatsoever. Do you remember that big reveal?
Because you claim so. I say they are. In fact, it’s kinda funny to watch Democrats twist themselves into pretzels trying at the same time to claim that ramming things down Republican throats in the Senate by 51% is a “return to democracy” while Republicans doing the 51% in the House is “intransigence” and “obstruction”.
Out here in reality, we’re the ones accusing you of this position. You’re the one who is saying there’s something wrong with the Democrats using a simple majority while refusing to mention the Republicans’ use of it. You can’t, of course: it utterly destroys every argument you’ve made.
Here it is, as simple as possible in another food metaphor. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Try to wiggle out of that.
Because, as shown by the shut-down, it isn’t 51% of the house. The votes to pass the budget bill were there. The press actually showed that to be the case a week before the shutdown. But because the majority of the majority party (read, a minority of all voting members) wouldn’t vote for it, they refused to let it see the light of day.
Yes, a MINORITY of the members of the House of Representatives held up the Business of Government and refused to allow the MAJORITY to pass a bill.
And you’re just angry because they can no longer play the same game in the Senate.
Govern or go home. As simple as that.
Obama was elected, that carries with it that the public entrusts him with certain privileges. Among them is selecting his executive branch leaders, who are delegated the authority vested in him by that same election. That power has the appropriate check, the Senate capacity to “advise and consent”. That is the power to inspect the choice for, say, the head of the Consumer Protection Agency and approve. The Senate is traditionally expected to approve the President’s choice as a civic courtesy, an expression of respect for the choice the people have made.
The filibuster has an appropriate role as well, it is an expression of extreme dismay, it is, by design, political theater. It is a protest, and is best applied as such, an effort by a minority of Senators to have their views heard and noted. Not, repeat, not a means by which the minority of the Senate may frustrate and veto the majority will.
And this so called “nuclear option” applies only to that small segment of power, the approval of nominees that the President is entitled to make. It does not affect the Senate’s power of the approval of treaties, it does not have a bearing on legislation. It doesn’t even effect a nomination to the Supreme Court!
I have no objection to demonstrations of dismay and even political theater, most of politics is theater, to one degree or another. But the script is already written, and it was written by the consent of the governed.
If Obama decides to stage Hamlet, and the Congress has already approved, it is not the privilege of a minority in the Senate to refuse to cast an actor in the title role.
A word from Alexander Hamilton:
What he said.
You are misrepresenting what I said. I said that using simple majority when confirming judicial appointments that are there for life and cannot be removed later is wrong.
The press “shows” a lot of stuff. The important numbers are when there is an actual vote.
Democrats, by killing the filibuster for the judicial appointments, just guaranteed complete trench warfare and utter deadlock for the foreseeable future.
Sure. Go ahead, Democrats. Govern or go home. And stop whining.
The formulation I prefer is “lead, follow, or get out of the way,” but it’s the same idea. The people have denied to them the right to lead (thank goodness), but they believe they have some sort of divine right to call the shots anyway.
So instead of following or getting out of the way, they gum up the works in the hope (too often rewarded back in recent years) that the frustrated majority, in Hamilton’s words, “in order that something may be done, [will] conform to the views of the minority.”
They will be, now that they put the brats in time-out.
So you’re saying the behavior of the Republicans in Congress will remain unchanged.
Got it.
Dems are in fact doing their best to govern, subject to the limits of a screwy system. Getting rid of one of those limits, as they have just done, will aid their ability to govern.
Here’s one simple thing Obama can do now that he couldn’t have dared to do a week ago: he can request the resignations of officials whose performance he isn’t happy with. Last week, he couldn’t fire anyone because he had no way of knowing when or if he could bring a replacement on board. Now he can do that.
You have to be able to do that sort of thing to govern. So saying “govern or go home” when your party is depriving the Executive Branch of a necessary tool of governing is disingenuous at best.
So, the status quo is preserved?
If a filibuster falls in a forest and the GOP doesn’t change, does anybody really give a damn?
As odd as it might seem, let me enlist Harry Reid himself to argue for not exercising the nuclear option:tics/Sen-Harry-Reid-s-Filibuster-Floor-Speech"Harry Reid himself to argue for not exercising the nuclear option:
And a few more quotes from those who used to hold a principled position in opposition to the nuclear option:
Too much reading? here’s a video of Obama and Biden talking out of both sides of their mouths.