Why does "journalist" Brett Baier keep saying that reconciliation is the nuclear option? Is he full of **** or is he just ignorant on the subject? I watched him conflate the two again tonight.
Because he believes his audience is a bunch of knuckle dragging idiots that will accept as true what spews from his piehole. SHUT YER PIEHOLE! People Baier is insulting you!
yeah I just don't get how the hell people thinks that special report is "fair and balanced" and that baier is a real journalist. I'm 22 years old I knew that reconciliation is not the same as the nuclear option.
I wonder if people at FOX are sitting back laughing every time someone swallows a line of BS like this. I can't imagine they aren't sitting back, laughing, and talking about how they can't believe people actually bought it.
It is probably more gratifying for them to direct it towards ego reinforcement. They probably think of themselves as the greatest masters of strategic propaganda since Joseph Goebbels. To credit them with a rational logic is, I think, too much. I think they are just along for the ride. The analogy I'd use is the blossoming megalomania of the Andy Griffith character in the film A Face in the Crowd. <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mJGUm9e_BLU&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mJGUm9e_BLU&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
Even if it WERE the nuclear option, Republicans threatened to use the nuclear option if Dems didn't compromise with them. Dems would be threatening to use the nuclear option if the GOP doesn't compromise with them. So even if it were the same thing, Dems would be using it essentially under the same circumstances as the GOP.
Yeah, That film is probably in my top 11 movies. That performance by Andy Griffith is definitely one of the 10 best ever. He should have won an Oscar for it. It is really amazing. Sadly the performance caused a great deal of damage to Griffith's psyche and caused him many many years of therapy. After I found that out, it took a long time before I could watch the movie and enjoy it guilt free again.
SImply put . . . he doesn't want the Demos to use it. That is all. If someone beats me with a left handed hook shot every time. I might say ANYTHING to make him not use it. "that's the only shot you got" "It is a punk shot" etc It is psychological warfare! Rocket River
A nuclear option is simply any attempt by the majority to get around a filibuster. Yes, I know what Wikipedia says, but Wikipedia doesn't work for Congress so it doesn't have first hand knowledge. It was a description coined by the Republicans during the stonewalling of 41's judicial appoints (although the concept has been around much longer than that). In this case, Republicans are calling this particular use of reconciliation a "nuclear option" because the Democrats are looking to make fundamental policy changes to a bill using it that would not strictly be budget related as scored by the CBO. In this case, while not a traditional use of the nuclear option, I believe that the spirit is there. Not that it matters, right now the House doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate bill.
No, no and no. The only people making this assertion are Faux News and right wingers. Any political scientist will tell you that reconciliation is a procedure provided for by law that allows for passage with 51 votes (see http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/2/641.html ). The "nuclear option" is nothing of the sort. They are completely different. Please show me the law that provides for the "nuclear option". I await your link.
I'm no expert on the senate, mostly cause I don't give a crap, but I think there is no option to avoid a filibuster with reconciliation when it comes to judicial nominees. If that is true then basically they are both a means to avoid a filibuster used in different situations. Also using the dems prior disagreements with reconciliation seems valid considering the repubs are the ones who mostly used it.
Using any prior complaints by Democrats about reconciliation would of course be perfectly valid. Using old quotes about the "nuclear option" and conflating that with the current debate on reconciliation is just arrogantly dishonest, as the real "nuclear option" and reconciliation were certainly not viewed as equivalent at the time those statements were made.
Exactly, because they AREN'T equivalent. One is provided for by law as a means to resolve filibusters within the rules of the Senate, whereas the other is usage of a point of parliamentary procedure to circumvent the the rules of the Senate. They are simply not the same thing.
It seems the biggest difference is that you can use each one in a different situation. Beyond that they both are a way to make 60=50.
