According to some people, that’s failing to “govern”.
Those are the shrill minority we should all pay no attention.
This is what Senate Pubs were saying about the filibuster in 2005.
By the number of hitherto-delayed nominees confirmed under the new rules?
That’s the “enormous win”? Ah the self-delusion of soft expectations.
Works for me. What ever removes conservatives from governing is a giant step forward.
I would agree with you except that they are not filibustering judicial appointees over fears of what these particular judges might do if appointed. They are doing it to use gain leverage on some unrelated issue OR to deny any appointments at all to some courts.
With that said, there is some apparent hypocrisy here on the Democratic side. Just as there is hypocrisy here on the Republican side. However, one of the reasons for preserving the filibuster back in 2005 was that the nuclear option would destroy the comity of the senate, I don’t think there is much comity left. Another distinction is that the Bush nominees were generally considered more partisan than Obama’s nominees, some people say that this perception is more the result of a generally liberal judiciary than the result of Bush’s nominees actually being out of the mainstream but thats the perception.
You have a cite that the filibustered nominees are left wing loonies? It seems pretty apparent that some highly qualified folks are being filibustered for the DC circuit purely because its the DC circuit.
So you don’t think it matters whether lack of consensus is the result of good faith or the result of obstructionism?
The difference is largely a difference of degree, not kind. I believe Democrats were the first to filibuster judicial nominees (and not just extreme right wingers, just judges that had a mild pro-life aura). While Obama’s nominees have been filibustered more than all previous presidents combined, I think the same can be said of bush’s nominees.
Mid-game? IIRC, Reid was going to change the rules at the beginning of the session but McConnell promised that these shenanigans would stop and they didn’t. I think you can get another bite at the apple when the other side reneges.
The moderates are all keeping their heads down. Hopefully they will be allowed to be reasonable again at some point in the future (when we have a white male president).
The best argument for using the nuclear option has been that the Democrats had nothing to lose. The Republicans had already pulled all the stops.
I doubt there is anything more they could do that wouldn’t result in a serious backlash against the party. What are they going to do? Shut down the government again? Not raise the debt ceiling?
Those are all stupid ideas. We needed fundamental health care reform and what we got was weak tea but it was better than any of those ideas.
:rolleyes: That bullshit again?!
Of course it is, in the exact sense of being the whole point of the whole thing.
Once again, you have failed to distinguish between the whole, and a small part of the whole. You have to be able to make this critical - but incredibly easy, for most people - distinction, in order to fight ignorance.
To sum up our dialogue, I pointed out that the end of the filibuster on Executive Branch (a big place, mind you) appointees enables Obama to exercise a simple but important tool of governance: to replace such appointees that he wants to replace.
You are holding up his statement that he wouldn’t be firing people associated with the troubled healthcare.gov rollout (a much smaller set of people) as if it was a refutation of my statement.
I could just as accurately say I drank the entire Mississippi River on account of having swallowed a thimbleful of muddy water.
If it’s not an enormous win for the Democrats, then why is there enormous consternation from the Republicans?
Maybe they were just a few quarts low on consternation. Just sayin’ …
Of course, that Palin just didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about should go without saying.
CMC
I mean, why do you think they changed the filibuster rule WRT presidential appointments and nothing else?
Do Independents even know WTF the filibuster IS?
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: You link to a book for sale, and in your mind that’ renders of my point “bullshit”?
How long have you been posting here again?
Hey, are you John Edwards in real life?
The point is that the real agenda behind “tort reform” is entirely partisan.
So? In your mind that automatically makes it “bullshit”? I’m shocked—SHOCKED—you would equate the two. PLease. Even Obama acknowledged that medical lawsuits, and the extraordinarily high judgements they can bring, can cause doctors and hospitals to practice defensive medicine, which raises the cost of healthcare overall.
By like 2%. Wanting to do tort reform first is like beginning the restoration of a car by changing the glove-box light.
Big problems first, then we can talk about the small stuff like tort reform.
None of the GOP apologists have responded to my question in #316. Is that because there is no answer beyond admitting GOP hypocrisy?
I ask non-GOP Dopers to tell me if there was something inappropriate or unfair about that question.