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Senate approves nuclear option

Perotista said:
I'm headed down the highway, how we doing tonight. Quite a lot to think about as to what you said. I think you had some good points, but I am an old foggie who doesn't care for that much change. At least all at once.
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clownboy said:
There's quite a lot I agree with there. However, some changes can't just be rolled back but rather entrench power. In particular judicial appointments. We're stuck with those yahoos until they die or get caught with a live boy or dead girl.
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I'm as much an old fogie as anyone else here. Maybe that gives me courage, since I can conveniently die if things don't work out so well. Ha!

There are plenty of safeties built into the system. The SCOTUS is a perfect example. Some of our SCOTUS fogies have dementia or worse but they will sit there until they die. So, particularly in the present era where we have an extreme(ly) balanced court, some things can only be taken so far.

With the exception of Robertsons complete surprise vote, I probably could call 98% of the rulings in advance. Most of them neutralize each other. For each crazy rightie, there is an equally crazy lefti. In those 98% cases, if they all went to the moon and Kennedy was the only one on Earth, you'd simply have to peek inside his head. Before him, Sandra Day was the only justice who made an effort to do the correct thing without being totally mesmerized by their own political party.

So, with that in mind, isn't it time to get the show on the road? Lets be run by the left or the right - just let it run and let us see who accomplishes (not promises) more. How much more time do we need to waste on the 2nd amendment? You can have this but you can't have that. This barrel is too long, this is too short. Good grief. Nobody can take guns away. They can just dick around with technicalities.

See, I heard Obama singing about his shovel ready jobs and the only jobs that were created were printers jobs at the mint. Has our infrastructure healed itself in the 5 years of this boast. **** no. Why? How can you explain why in a recession nobody actually created these jobs and did this desperately needed work? Was it because Obama was just making empty promises or was it Republican lack of cooperation? Don't even try to answer that question - it's rhetorical. We can never actually know. If it was all Obama all day all night, we'd be saying "wow, you were a big, fat liar - you're fired" or "like wow man, Obama is totally frosty". Now, it's just a giant shrug.

I don't usually advocate fixing things that work. But I do want to see things that badly need fixing being fixed and there is just too much excuse potential on the plate.

Now, we'll find out. Maybe too late this time but we might make better decisions in the future.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
i don't mean to sound rude by asking this, but did you take into consideration what was in the article, mainly the reason why a group of activists chose to campaign for filibuster reform?
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I don't mind rudness, if I did I wouldn't be on this site. I said I don't like it, I have always understood the reasons behind it. There is a difference, but as old as I am, I am steeped in tradition. I have become use to and respect tradition. Now if this happened before the session began when the rules governing the body are suppose to be proposed, changed etc. I probably would have thought much about it. This change Reid pulled was like having two teams playing a pick up basketball game agree to the rules they would be playing under only to have the team who also owned the basketball, change the rules half way through the game to suit their purpose.

When members of the senate meet at the beginning of a session they established the rules for that entire session. To change the rules during a session the rule stated it would require 67 votes, not 51. But it is what it is. Just goes to show you one can't trust politicians. As if I didn't know that all ready.
 
The whining when the shoe is on the other foot will be amusing.
 
specklebang said:
I'm as much an old fogie as anyone else here. Maybe that gives me courage, since I can conveniently die if things don't work out so well. Ha!

There are plenty of safeties built into the system. The SCOTUS is a perfect example. Some of our SCOTUS fogies have dementia or worse but they will sit there until they die. So, particularly in the present era where we have an extreme(ly) balanced court, some things can only be taken so far.

With the exception of Robertsons complete surprise vote, I probably could call 98% of the rulings in advance. Most of them neutralize each other. For each crazy rightie, there is an equally crazy lefti. In those 98% cases, if they all went to the moon and Kennedy was the only one on Earth, you'd simply have to peek inside his head. Before him, Sandra Day was the only justice who made an effort to do the correct thing without being totally mesmerized by their own political party.

So, with that in mind, isn't it time to get the show on the road? Lets be run by the left or the right - just let it run and let us see who accomplishes (not promises) more. How much more time do we need to waste on the 2nd amendment? You can have this but you can't have that. This barrel is too long, this is too short. Good grief. Nobody can take guns away. They can just dick around with technicalities.

See, I heard Obama singing about his shovel ready jobs and the only jobs that were created were printers jobs at the mint. Has our infrastructure healed itself in the 5 years of this boast. **** no. Why? How can you explain why in a recession nobody actually created these jobs and did this desperately needed work? Was it because Obama was just making empty promises or was it Republican lack of cooperation? Don't even try to answer that question - it's rhetorical. We can never actually know. If it was all Obama all day all night, we'd be saying "wow, you were a big, fat liar - you're fired" or "like wow man, Obama is totally frosty". Now, it's just a giant shrug.

I don't usually advocate fixing things that work. But I do want to see things that badly need fixing being fixed and there is just too much excuse potential on the plate.

Now, we'll find out. Maybe too late this time but we might make better decisions in the future.
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I highly doubt about the better decisions. That is unless you are talking about me, I know I make pretty darn good ones, just ask me. I don't know, I was up in arms yesterday and today I just don't know. The strange thing is I have always believed the president should get who he wants. People he trusts to be around him and to run the departments, agencies etc. Judges since they serve a life time instead of just at the discreation of the president is another matter.

I think I would have been bothered or up in arms as was the case yesterday if this was just for the presidents political appointments. They come and go, judges stay forever or until they die. I still have to do some deep thinking on that. I still don't like that portion. But as you stated, we do have some wackos on the SCOTUS. So it probably doesn't matter. But I am having a real difficult time convincing myself of that.

But if we are going to do away with the filibuster for judical and presidential appointments, let's just do away with it for everything and let the chips fall where they may. There, I just reversed course on your highway.
 
Perotista said:
I highly doubt about the better decisions. That is unless you are talking about me, I know I make pretty darn good ones, just ask me. I don't know, I was up in arms yesterday and today I just don't know. The strange thing is I have always believed the president should get who he wants. People he trusts to be around him and to run the departments, agencies etc. Judges since they serve a life time instead of just at the discreation of the president is another matter.

I think I would have been bothered or up in arms as was the case yesterday if this was just for the presidents political appointments. They come and go, judges stay forever or until they die. I still have to do some deep thinking on that. I still don't like that portion. But as you stated, we do have some wackos on the SCOTUS. So it probably doesn't matter. But I am having a real difficult time convincing myself of that.

But if we are going to do away with the filibuster for judical and presidential appointments, let's just do away with it for everything and let the chips fall where they may. There, I just reversed course on your highway.
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Maybe it's just a lack of patience on my part. I'm pretty logical and certainly would be a better President than any of them that actually got the job.

I also know that Obama is a scary leftist. But dammit, we elected him, let him run the damn thing and if he screws it up, lets stop re-electing these turkeys.
 
Perotista said:
I don't mind rudness, if I did I wouldn't be on this site. I said I don't like it, I have always understood the reasons behind it. There is a difference, but as old as I am, I am steeped in tradition. I have become use to and respect tradition. Now if this happened before the session began when the rules governing the body are suppose to be proposed, changed etc. I probably would have thought much about it. This change Reid pulled was like having two teams playing a pick up basketball game agree to the rules they would be playing under only to have the team who also owned the basketball, change the rules half way through the game to suit their purpose.

When members of the senate meet at the beginning of a session they established the rules for that entire session. To change the rules during a session the rule stated it would require 67 votes, not 51. But it is what it is. Just goes to show you one can't trust politicians. As if I didn't know that all ready.
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At the beginning of the session, there weren't the problems there are now. Apparently there are pressing reasons for a mid-session change of the rules now. Were the Repubs caught by surprise on this? Since this is only supposed to affect judges at this time, and since the lack of judges has been an ongoing complaint by Obama for a long time, it makes me wonder what legal challenges are expected by this administration that necessitated the nuclear option so suddenly!

Greetings, Pero. :2wave:
 
specklebang said:
Maybe it's just a lack of patience on my part. I'm pretty logical and certainly would be a better President than any of them that actually got the job.

I also know that Obama is a scary leftist. But dammit, we elected him, let him run the damn thing and if he screws it up, lets stop re-electing these turkeys.
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I consider the president left of center. Now if we had a parliment instead of congress what you say would be pretty plain. I am confident that the house will remain in GOP hands for the next three years so doing away with the filibuster really doesn't matter until after 2016. That is except for judicial appointments. But I guess that is one of the perks of the job. Heck, why not. We get the government we deserve and as long as we continue to elect the same folks and the same parties that have caused all of our problems in the first place, we ain't going to get anything better. I guess it is quite simple.
 
polgara said:
At the beginning of the session, there weren't the problems there are now. Apparently there are pressing reasons for a mid-session change of the rules now. Were the Repubs caught by surprise on this? Since this is only supposed to affect judges at this time, and since the lack of judges has been an ongoing complaint by Obama for a long time, it makes me wonder what legal challenges are expected by this administration that necessitated the nuclear option so suddenly!

Greetings, Pero. :2wave:
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It was an ongoing complaint with the Bush administraton too and with Clinton and keep on going back. It is my understand this change, 51 votes effects judicial and all presidential nominations. That is political appointments. The political appointments don't both me, I said before the president should have the people around him he wants and trusts. It is the judges that I have my beef with. But what the heck, most judges these days are activists anyway. They don't have the faintest idea what original intent is.

I don't know about the Republicans being caught by surprise, Reid theaten this many times, he just pulled the string yesterday. It is all political any how. I think the GOP wanted to filibuster all these judges until after next years election when they hoped to take control of the senate. Then they could have voted no to them denying them a place on the bench. I suppose both sides are equally responsible, but I still don't like it.
 
Perotista said:
It was an ongoing complaint with the Bush administraton too and with Clinton and keep on going back. It is my understand this change, 51 votes effects judicial and all presidential nominations. That is political appointments. The political appointments don't both me, I said before the president should have the people around him he wants and trusts. It is the judges that I have my beef with. But what the heck, most judges these days are activists anyway. They don't have the faintest idea what original intent is.

I don't know about the Republicans being caught by surprise, Reid theaten this many times, he just pulled the string yesterday. It is all political any how. I think the GOP wanted to filibuster all these judges until after next years election when they hoped to take control of the senate. Then they could have voted no to them denying them a place on the bench. I suppose both sides are equally responsible, but I still don't like it.
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The problem is that those making the changes don't care what we think!
 
polgara said:
The problem is that those making the changes don't care what we think!
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The constitution give the house and the senate the ability and authority to make their own rules. What ever they are is strictly up to them, not us.
 
Perotista said:
The constitution give the house and the senate the ability and authority to make their own rules. What ever they are is strictly up to them, not us.
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:agree: And done in a bipartisan manner, it rarely caused the problems we are seeing now. The mood of the entire country is changing, and not for the better.
 
polgara said:
:agree: And done in a bipartisan manner, it rarely caused the problems we are seeing now. The mood of the entire country is changing, and not for the better.
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Yeah, into hard left and hard right camps with the majority of Americans in the middle. The problem is the hard right and the hard left pick the candidates they want those of us in the middle to choose from. Dang shame we can't have a middle party. I sick and tired of the Republicans and Democrats.
 
Perotista said:
Yeah, into hard left and hard right camps with the majority of Americans in the middle. The problem is the hard right and the hard left pick the candidates they want those of us in the middle to choose from. Dang shame we can't have a middle party. I sick and tired of the Republicans and Democrats.
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:agree: No wonder people are turning off, and tuning out!
 
I was discussing your posts with a colleague this morning and was directed to Federalist Paper #10. Here's a bit I think you'll appreciate, Perotista:

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The Federalist #10
 
polgara said:
:agree: No wonder people are turning off, and tuning out!
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Me thinks we need a viable third party for the middle. Let the Democrats have the hard left and the Republicans the hard right. We need a party to speak for those who are turning off and turning out and departing the main parties in droves.
 
Perotista said:
Me thinks we need a viable third party for the middle. Let the Democrats have the hard left and the Republicans the hard right. We need a party to speak for those who are turning off and turning out and departing the main parties in droves.
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:agreed: Who might it be?
 
polgara said:
:agreed: Who might it be?
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I haven't the faintest idea. Perot was 20 years too early. Today's atmosphere is much more conductive to a third party having success. Most voters vote for the lesser of two evils and the least disliked party. But the obsticles are tremendous to be overcome. I see no one on the horizon, but who knows, Perot came from nowhere.
 
NIMBY said:
Hello Polgara--to directly answer your question, one of the 3 court of appeals judges filibustered in the last week was passed 55-43 after the nuclear option..The other two will be up shortly..The other 90 federal openings out of a grand total of 873 judges, over 10%, will shortly be approved to catch up with the judicial backlog..I trust a future President Christie against this House, even if McConnell leads the Senate in 2016, unlikely since the GOP has far more seats to protect that cycle..President Christie should not have 82 cabinet/judicial appointees blocked out of an historical total of 168..This fight today has zero to do with next year..IMO, battle lines are already drawn as they have been by Cantor and his coup for 5 years..
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Pulled this post from page 39...don't have time to read the remaining 10+ pages to catch up with the discussion, but this post caught my attention.

I was listening to Mark Levin's radio show today (during drive time which is about as long as I can stand him :roll: ) and he was mentioning how this was all about the Obama Administration packing the lower courts similar to what FDR tried to do only with the Supreme Court. My thoughts immediately turned to the GWBush Administration where instead of trying to fill the lower courts with party favorites, he instead lined the Office of Legal Counsel and the Office of Legal Services with his appointees who wrote the memos on terrorist tribunals that eventually set legal precedent from the Executive Branch. People don't talk about it much because...well, it's prosecuting terrorist! But it doesn't make what he did any more right.

Until Levin mentioned it, I hadn't really thought Sen. Reid pulling the trigger on the nuclear option would impact any legislative decisions coming out of the Senate other than presidential nominations. But I can certainly see why so many folks on the Right are concerned about this rule change. Thing is as I understand the limits of this ruling, the filibuster can still be used in all other Senate business except for presidential nomination less nominations to the SC. So, in that sense, I don't know why folks are so up in arms over this since it doesn't change normal order (or it's not suppose to anyway). I'll look into it alittle later (Senate.gov, query "rules" for those interested) and see exactly how this impacts ordinary Senate voting procedures, but from what I understand this shouldn't change things in the lower chamber. Yet, Republicans are already looking at ways to punish the other side. The way I see it, if they backed away from not blocking nominations for long vacate positions that the President needs to have filled, then IMHO they left Sen. Reid no choice but to change the rules.
 
clownboy said:
Except if you've been following along you'd know this dem rule change does not apply to SCOTUS nominations or to legislation. It's strictly centered around non-SCOTUS judicial appointments.
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Repubs have already threatened to go all the way on the filibuster to SCOTUS Justices and legislation..Time for ya to catch up with your own team..
 
Just found this article from Forbs.com which gives a very good overview of how Republicans reacted by in 2005 when the situation was reversed. Only back then the Dems kept their side of the bargain.

The 2005 version of the nuclear option never exploded as a group of 14 senators—half Democrats and half Republicans—came up with a deal whereby the Democrats promised not to filibuster presidential nominees except in “exceptional circumstances” and the Republicans promised not to use the nuclear option unless they believed the Democrats were filibustering appointees on grounds that did not qualify as exceptional.
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It's becoming clear to me that Senate Republicans reneged on their part of the deal this time around. This is why I'm not too hell bent on Sen. Reid's decision to pull the trigger. Granted, it might come back and bit him (and the President) in the butt, but the more people learn why this was done and what led up to it, the more I think people will kinda see things alittle more like Perotista (re: "President should get consideration for his nominations in a straight up or down vote with few excepts" (if I've interpreted his commentary correctly)).
 
Visbek said:
If this is the case, then why are Republicans protesting?
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Because it can both ways and destroys a long stand rule and tradition of the senate.
 
NIMBY said:
Repubs have already threatened to go all the way on the filibuster to SCOTUS Justices and legislation..Time for ya to catch up with your own team..
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Nothing the SC can do about this considering that the opening line to Art. I, Section 5 of the Constitution gives both chambers of Congress the authority to set their own rules:

Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings...
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All the SC will say is the Senate Majority Leader followed Senate Rules, its members voted and the rules were changed by majority vote.

Next!
 
cpgrad08 said:
Because it can both ways and destroys a long stand rule and tradition of the senate.
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No. What Senate Republicans are really upside with is they see this as a power grab. The fear Senate Dems will run rough-shot over them as long as Republicans remain the minority party in the Senate. Moreover, they fear the lower judicial courts (District and Appeals) will be loaded with Liberal judges. It's got nothing to do with changing tradition because when they were in power not too long ago, they threatened to do the same thing.
 
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