Actually 79nominees were actually filibustered under Obama more than all previous presidents using "actual filibusters".
PolitiFact | Flip-flopping on the filibuster
This is false, regardless of how badly Politifact defines a "filibuster". There very well may have been 79 CLOTURE VOTES on Nominees, but that isn't the same thing as a Filibuster. Reid can call a cloture vote whenever he wants, but unless the cloture is shot down there was no filibuster. Filibusters are failed cloture votes, not cloture votes. Successful cloture votes are not filibusters and using cloture votes as a measure of minority party opposition either a sign of stupidity of intellectual dishonesty.
To date on Obama nominees, between 111th, 112th and 113th Senates, there have been a total of 11 failed cloture votes on Presidential nominees. As I pointed out earlier, in the 108th senate alone, with Harry Reid as the minority leader, there were 16 failed cloture votes.
The number you and Politifact keep sighting is driven entirely by Harry Reid's personal whims. When you count ACTUAL Filibusters by Republicans is pales in comparison to Reid and the Democrats.
I find it weird that Conservatives used Cloture as filibusters under Bush but now it no longer is a good gauge of obstructionism. Of course most of the fools they write for seem to only paid attention since 2008.
A cloture vote can be called by either party at any time, and is often called simply to bypass floor debate on a vote where there is unanimous consent anyway. A plurality of cloture votes under Reid on matter of judicial nominees have been precisely that, unanimous consent by all parties to skip right to the floor vote. A filibuster is when the minority uses that cloture vote as a way of delaying the end of floor debate indefinitely. The Republicans have done that 11 times in 5 years.
The study that Reid keeps pointing to doesn't prove what Reid thinks it does. Again, only the 103rd Senate, 108th Senate and 111-113th in that time period had a minority party that was in opposition to the standing President, so only in those 5 Senates is cloture even a logical maneuver (Democrat minority wouldn't filibuster Clinton, Republican minority wouldn't filibuster Bush), and in those 5 Senates Harry Reid in the 108th is the winner in a walk with 79% filibuster rate (by that study). In 111th through 113th the total number has skyrocketed while the rate has remained within historic norms.
Not that the study also shows a huge upswing in Withdrawals of cloture in 112th,
you can see them all here (most happened on March 12th), every single one of those 20 withdrawals or vitiated were because there was no opposition and the nominee was confirmed, often with 80+ votes to confirm.
So no, Politifact isn't correct here. There is no validity to calling a cloture vote a filibuster of a minority attempt to block a nominee
when the minority voted in favor of cloture. A 75-15 vote to end debate isn't a minority attempt at blocking a nominee no matter how much you and Harry Reid and Politifact want to make it so.
It's actually pretty common practice...right before a President leaves he tries to jam through tons of appointments. The minority party that is hoping to gain the presidency blocks the nominations. If you look at a graph of nominations every President has a spike in the last year before he leaves office/re-elected. Which is why selecting the year before the end of Bush's first term is cherry picking the year where the majority of filibusters took place....like every President before him.
Actually no, you are just making crap up because it sounds like it supports your point. Of the 261 District court appointments Bush made in his 8 years 22 happened in 2004 leading up to the election. So much for your election year court packing theory...
Sure....in Bush's second term the majority party just blocked all confirmations Bush's last year. you notice they don't compare it to 2002 though right? Right after he was re-elected to office and still had pretty much a full term as President...I wonder why they used his last year of his first term...mhmmmm. Also weird they don't compare all 8 of Bush's years to all 8 of Obama's.
Nope, the majority of his appointments in his first term came in 2003, not 2004. Right in the middle of his first term. Of the 302 total Judicial Nominees by Bush in his 8 years only 18 were made in 2008. Again, so much for your theory.
I call it cherry picking because it is. It uses a time frame where filibusters are historically used a lot more than normal (last year in the term of a President) compared to Obama's first year after getting elected. If you don't understand how that's cherry picking....I dunno how to explain it better.
It isn't cherry picking. There is only one Senate where the President was Republican and the minority was Democrat, so that was the only Senate where Reid was the Minority leader with any reason to filibuster... and he did, on 79% of all cloture votes. The most the Republicans have had in their three Senates as minority to a Democratic President is 15%, by Harry Reid's own "evidence".
To get to the number that you, Reid and Politifact throw around you have to start counting all cloture votes as filibusters (pro-tip: they have different names for a reason) when the vast majority were not filibusters at all. In other words your argument is either based on ignorance or a desire to bend the truth.