Democrats say it is an arrogant power grab against the founders intent?

you are correct sir

 

They are talking about the essential nature of the filibuster in the US Senate, which some of them are now trying to circumvent by using "reconciliation" to pass their hugely unpopular health care bill. The Democratic Senators in this video (one who is now President, and another who is now Secretary of State) spoke directly to this issue in terms that are unusually clear and unmitigated coming from a bunch of US Senators. Here is the video again, in case anyone missed it:

<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/hJNRgcihYQI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="364" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

The statements by these Democratic Senators are directly relevant to the current discussion of the use of reconciliation. The use of this procedure would have the same effect as the 'Nuclear Option', which the Republicans threatened to use (but never did) to force an up or down vote on judicial nominations during the Bush Administration. At that time, it had not been the practice of the Senate to use the filibuster to block judicial nominations. But the Democrats in this instance invoked it anyway, thereby expanding the use of the filibuster in the Senate. And thanks to these same Senate Democrats, the precedent has now been established for the use of filibusters with regards to judicial nominations. This has only served to make the confirmation of judges a routinely partisan exercise, which it had not been prior to the Democrats pulling this little stunt.

The Democrats expanded the use of the filibuster when they were in the minority under President Bush. Now that they are in the majority, despite their passionate defense of the filibuster (shown in the video above) they want to completely reverse course and act contrary to everything they said here.

What this video clearly conveys to us, yet again, is that the hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds.

 

because the the topic turned to the absurdity of Fox News pimping this lie of the nuclear option and Sarah is on Fox. And she's absurd

 

No, it wouldn't, because the "nuclear option" is to remove the filibuster altogether.

What the Dems are thinking about doing is the EXACT SAME THING that the GOP did to pass Bush's tax cuts.

Now, please STFU and let the adults talk since you either don't understand what we are talking about or are simply an extension of Faux, spreading distortions and lies.

 

Andy Jorge knows this; he's just posting **** to piss people off and derail the thread.

 

The 'Nuclear Option' though is fundamentally different than Reconciliation as the impact of the Nuclear Option would be much broader than Reconciliation. Further if you are talking about precedent Reconciliation has a precedent and has been around for almost 35 years including being used a few times by the previous Republican Congress. The Nuclear Option is unprecedented. That said if you are talking about getting around filibusters as being unprecedented the cloture rule was established in 1917 so that precedent has long been set.

The Democrats didn't expand the filibuster by applying it to Judicial nominees. In fact it was Republicans who first filibustered a judicial nominee.

In 1968 President Lyndon Johnson nominated Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court. He was successfully filibustered by Republicans leading Johnson to withdraw the nomination.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45149-2005Mar17.html

If you are talking about hypocrisy in regard to filibuster of judicial nominees let me note that in this current Congress Republicans have considered filibustering Obama's judicial nominees.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45149-2005Mar17.html

 

Everything you posted, without exception, are facts and facts have a well known liberal bias, as such, MojoMan won't respond with anything of substance.

 

Everything I posted was factual and right on the money. In fact, I believe my previous post and the video posted above pretty well cover the salient points. I am familiar with the lame excuses offered by the left as to why the Democrat's hypocrisy on this issue (an many others) should be ignored or overlooked. But I do not find these arguments convincing, and I do not think most other people do either.

The video is especially a killer. I hope you guys are aware that this video, being as clear, powerful and compelling as it is, has already been distributed far and wide, and has been posted on countless blogs and message boards across the country, and around the world. The speed of the dissemination of this short clip has really been quite impressive.

You guys are pissing into a hurricane on this one. Time to give it up, guys.

 

No, you are a liar, someone who believes that distorting the truth is OK as long as the distortion favors your idealogical prejudices.

If you are maintaining that the "nuclear option" is reconciliation, you are telling a lie. Simple as that.

 

Vintage TJ. Of course this post you just made offers zero efforts to refute your lame attempt to claim that reconciliation is the same thing as the nuclear option. The video misses the mark, and your inability to address the points others have made only cement the lack accuracy and lack of logic behind the argument being made.

The video which shows GOP senators hypocrisy on the issue however, only makes the video and the claim about nuclear option that much more hilarious.

 

Maybe if Jorge (and Rush) scream a little louder it’ll become the truth!

 

Are you going to dispute that Republicans had used the filibuster rule back in 1968 to stop a judicial nominee and as such filibustering a judicial nominee was not unprecedented?

As I said before I think the Democrats have been hypocritical but so have the Republicans in regard to Senate rules like the filibuster. That is one reason why I have argued for keep the filibuster and why I believe it is essential to the Senate. That said I find the arguments you but forward to excoriate the Democrats to be factually inaccurate and problematic given the previous rhetoric and actions of the Republicans.

9/11 truther videos, videos purporting alien creating crop circles and all sorts of things have been widely distributed. I would say this video pales in the speed of dissemination compared to the AC transit bus fight. Widespread dissemination through the internet isn't a standard of truthfulness nor is repeated spamming of such material.

 

No, but it could be the standard for truthiness, defined as the reality that is intuitively known without regard to liberal ideals such as reason and logic.

 

If the republicans run anybody for president in 2012 from congress and then claim the "moderate" label the press is gonna have a field day.

Obama was right in that they have really backed themselves into a nasty corner. Unfortunately, Obama was a moderate when he did not have to be (or should not have been, depending on your POV).

 

Didn't Stephen Colbert coin that word?

 

Yes, as is evident if you follow the link.

 

Content blocked by your organization

Reason: This Websense category is filtered: Advocacy Groups.

FML?

 

I work in education...no filtering FTW!!!

 

I will dispute the suggestion that the filibuster that you speak of was only conducted by the Republicans. That filibuster was in fact a bipartisan effort, as it appears that Abe Fortas was not supported by a majority of the Senate, and was opposed by Senators of both parties. So your assertion that this was entirely a Republican exercise is not actually correct.

What was unprecedented was the Democrat's use of the filibuster to block the confirmation of a judicial appointee who did have majority support in the Senate, and who would have been confirmed if a vote had been permitted to be held. And it was not just one judicial appointee that the Democrats did this with during the Bush Administration by any means. What was unprecedented was the introduction of the usage of this tactic as a strategy of obstruction that was being by the Democrats in the Senate on a routine basis to block anyone who did not pass muster with the Democratic left. That was truly unprecedented and extremely partisan.

But "unprecedented" or not, it was not the practice of the Senate to use the filibuster to block judicial nominations for purely partisan reasons, or with a purely partisan vote, until the Democrats did it to Miguel Estrada in 2003. Until then, every nominee that had majority support in the Senate won confirmation. Until the Democrats unilaterally ended that collegial practice in 2003 with the filibuster of Miguel Estrada.

The Republicans have acted hypocritically at times, there is no question about that. But the frequency with which they have done so does not even come close to the frequency with which Democrats demonstrate their hypocritical tendencies, such as they are obviously doing now on this issue. Clearly, just because the Democrats do it does not make it OK for the Republicans to do it. But that works the other way as well. Just because the Republicans do it, does not make it OK for the Democrats to do it. It is always wrong for any elected representatives to be conducting themselves in a hypocritical manner. And that applies to politicians of any stripe.

The use of the filibuster needs to be maintained in the Senate, but not for political or judicial nominees. In fact, I would support a permanent change in the Senate rules, effective on the first day of the President's term of office beginning after the election in 2012, to institutionalize the majority vote rule for political and judicial nominees and to disallow filibusters for these confirmation votes. Elections have consequences, the role of the Senate is to advise and consent, and if a majority of Senators concur, then the President's nominees should be seated, regardless of what party the President is from.

With regards to the current health care situation, it is my sense that this discussion is moot. The Democrats are not going to be able to muster adequate support within their own ranks to use this controversial tactic to advance this very unpopular bill. If health care reform is going to be passed during the current Congress, it is going to need to be be something that wins substantial support from Republicans, which means a substantially stripped down bill that focuses on issues like health insurance regulation, tort reform, and other cost reduction measures, such as allowing the sale of health insurance across state lines. All of this reconciliation talk is just a lot of far-left ranting and howling at the moon. It is not going to happen.

Fuggetaboutit....

 

True there were Democrats that opposed Fortas' nomination but that doesn't change the fact that as the article notes the filibuster was led by Republicans or the fact that a filibuster had been used against a judicial nominee prior to 2005 establishing a precedent.

We don't know whether Fortas would've been approved or not if there had been a vote but if he wouldn't have been confirmed then there wouldn't have been a need for a filibuster. Fortas' opponents enacted the filibuster to stall for time since its likely he would've been confirmed by a majority. To say that the use of the filibuster in 2003 was unprecendented for a nominee who might have majority supporty doesn't make sense in light of why Fortas was filibustered in the first place.

You don't use a filibuster if you can win the vote outright.

You have a point there if you are saying the amoung of use for it was unprecendented but you wrote:

That would mean that it had never been done before when in fact it had.

"Practice" is a subjective word and while it might not have been a common occurence it was precedented.

Let me ask you would you say that the Republican Congress was unprecendented in impeaching Bill Clinton?

The Republicans are hypocrites but not as big as the Democrats?

Consider that the filibuster has been invoked way more in this current congress than ever and as my link shows the Republicans who were apoplectic over the use of the filibuster of Judicial nominees now consider it themselves.

While its fine you say it applies politicians of all stripes you are clearly directing your criticism only to a striped donkey as opposed to a striped elephant.

Why shouldn't the filibuster not apply to judicial nominees? I have no problem with Republicans using it if they don't like Obama nominees. The Constitution empowers Congress to make its own rules and it is a coequal branch to the executive. As such its rules should apply in all cases rather than cowtow to the Executive.

That may be the case but that still doesn't mean Reconciliation is the same as "the Nuclear Option" and the video and your arguments otherwise don't change that fact.