Poison the food?
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Senate confirms Gorsuch to replace Scalia on Supreme Court
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Poison the food?
power comes in cycles in America. We will be in power again, then we will destroy them. Or at least, i hope that's what happens. The rules of politics in America as they once were are no more. It is time to shut these traitors out.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Politifact doesn't know what it's talking about. Let's compare cloture motions on nominees under (W.) Bush and Obama. Under Bush, there were 38. Under Obama through November 20, 2013 (the day before Reid went nuclear), there were 79. But 11 of the 38 cloture motions under Bush, and 39 of the 79 under Obama, were withdrawn. That means that only 27 under Bush and 40 under Obama were actually subjected to a cloture vote. Of those, 14 under Bush and 28 under Obama defeated cloture. That leaves 13 under Bush and 12 under Obama that were "blocked" by the failure of cloture. But of those 12 under Obama, two were confirmed anyways (before the nuclear option). So the final count as of late 2013 was 13 blocked under Bush and 10 blocked under Obama.
Of course, this is comparing two full terms of Bush's presidency with about one-and-a-fourth of Obama's. So let's double that resulting number from Obama to estimate what we could have expected at the end of his second term if Reid hadn't used the nuclear option: Bush - 13; Obama - 20. Still more under Obama, but there's a reason Democrats omit this additional context--to exaggerate Republican obstruction.
shinra-bansho
Member
Harriet Miers withdrew because she was grossly underqualified.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Oh no. You figured out my argument's secret weakness. It turns out that Politifact was totally right and there were 79 nominees blocked by Republicans under Obama because Republicans didn't hold hearings on Garland. Can't fool math!
Interesting, where did you get the data?
R10Neymarfan
Member
Let's continue the civil war, it actually never ended just postponed. I would advocate erasing the filth from our country for good, but some idealist principled people want to say otherwise.
There was a time Republicans were needed foils to the party in power, when they understood compromise and their party wasn't hijacked by insane traitors. I believe we will get there one day again.
Until that time, use every dirty tactic, use every source of fake news, smear every candidate you can, tear down every standard and use it against them. They started this and they are winning with this tactic. They will learn the consequences.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Surprisingly, the same places as Politifact. They just weren't reading the data with a critical eye. Table 6 of this Congressional Research Service report (PDF), as updated by this CRS report (PDF).
Thanks. Is there anywhere they noted how long each candidate was held up by the filibuster?
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Not in these reports, at least, but one key takeaway from them should be this:
Congressional Research Service said:
LudicrousSpeed
Member
Filibuster does not necessarily imply that the filibuster is successful, or that the filibuster is overcome by cloture. Any time a cloture vote is actually held, that's a sign of an actual honest filibuster, so you can't reduce past the 40/27 numbers. Also, deals cut between the parties may end filibusters, which means you can't just dispute that there was no filibuster because a cloture motion was withdrawn, so you can't even reduce to the 40/27 figure.
I would dispute the second half, that cloture being sought does not mean a filibuster is occurring. But I think it's just a matter of how narrowly you're seeking to cast what a filibuster is and what a filibuster isn't.
A filibuster is just the denial of unanimous consent to proceed to a vote, no more and no less. If there is no attempt at filibustering, then there would be no one refusing unanimous consent to move to a vote. Without going through and proving it case by case, the only real reason why there would ever be a case where a cloture petition was filed without a UC motion first failing would be because the minority leader informed the majority leader that a member of the minority caucus intended to withhold UC, which is an implicit filibuster. No one would file for cloture in a case where no one had indicated that they were going to withhold UC and no UC motion had actually been attempted.
If the filibuster is defeated by cloture, it's still a filibuster. If the filibuster is defeated by a side deal, it was still a filibuster. Hell, there are plenty of shadow filibusters in the form of the informal messages between the minority and majority leaders, in cases where the items brought by the majority party may have majority support despite being somewhat unpopular, yet lacks the votes for cloture. If you're having to twist people's arms and legs to get to 50, you might not want to subject the topic to a vote that would force those people onto the record as voting in favor unless you've got the ability to ram it through.
If you want to argue that the numbers for Obama and Bush are too low because of the filibusters that can't be quantified, I'd hear that argument. But there is no argument for reducing the number of filibusters below the number of cloture motions, because there is no reason for a cloture motion except when a filibuster has been signaled either implicitly (via backchannel communication) or expliciltly (with someone standing on the floor denying UC).
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
No, but a withdrawn cloture motion, a successful cloture vote, and a successful confirmation vote are conclusive evidence that a nominee wasn't "blocked," which is what Politifact (and other Democratic sycophants) pretend to be enumerating.
Take it up with the Congressional Research Service.
I love how Metaphoreus whole argument is essentially a long winded way of saying Republicans are obstructionist pieces of abhorrent garbage but not QUITE as abhorrent as that popular data says. Still awful though! But not that awful. And can't we all be glad they're all huge pieces of shit instead of galactic pieces of shits?
(Not that I don't support an accurate appraisal of the data, though I'd debate with you on how you decided to interpret certain bits of the data as well, but the conclusion is still the same. Republicans were obstructing Obama at an obscene rate)
(Not that I don't support an accurate appraisal of the data, though I'd debate with you on how you decided to interpret certain bits of the data as well, but the conclusion is still the same. Republicans were obstructing Obama at an obscene rate)
LudicrousSpeed
Member
But they are evidence of Republicans attempting to block the nominee. The Republicans don't suddenly avoid blame for their attempt at blocking a nominee just because they ultimately didn't have the numbers or horsetraded to get some compromise in exchange for stopping their opposition.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
If that's your theory of what happened, why don't you provide the evidence? Why do Democrats rely on these fictitious numbers instead of making an honest case showing the horsetrading or statements that reveal an intent to filibuster?
LudicrousSpeed
Member
You have the numbers. You, in fact, cited them. That you don't like the picture the numbers paint is a problem you'll have to sort out personally and not a reason for us to listen to you dissemble that the numbers are actually bullshit (despite accurately depicting the GOP's behavior) because they include cases where that opposition was not insurmountable.
It should at least be heartening that the only way Republicans have of defending Republican behavior is by trying to interpret that same data in less laughably damning ways.
At least that means they know deep down how fucked up the party is. There is hope that at the end of that mental gymnastics Olympics, they run out of ways to excuse how anti-American modern Republicans are.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Yes, but the numbers do not show what the Democrats pretend they do. That's the fiction. So, where's the evidence that supports your case?
You never disproved the point that republicans are obstructing the process. Republicans drew out and slowed down the process to an unprecedented point. Absolutely nothing you said disproved that.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
I've yet to see anything that proves it, so why should I attempt to disprove it? The numbers cited by Politifact certainly don't do the trick.
It's well documented. You can continue to obfuscate the issue but you sure as hell haven't disproven it. The burden is on you also since pretty much everybody else disagrees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/us/politics/senate-republicans-block-2-obama-nominees.html
Seems that this was the tripwire that made Reid pull it; the Republicans were actually arguing that Obama's DC appeal pick wasn't needed (or wanted) on the court and were trying to shrink it, which is something - they were basically trying to deny him the right to put anyone there at all.
Also Sen. Jeff Merkley with that foresight haha. The end of the filibuster for picks has long been coming.
^ Merrick Garland is shitty as hell but has nothing to do with the filibuster. Even if he was given a hearing they would have still held his pick up. I still don't see the logic behind not giving him a hearing, the Democrats were in the minority.
Seems that this was the tripwire that made Reid pull it; the Republicans were actually arguing that Obama's DC appeal pick wasn't needed (or wanted) on the court and were trying to shrink it, which is something - they were basically trying to deny him the right to put anyone there at all.
Also Sen. Jeff Merkley with that foresight haha. The end of the filibuster for picks has long been coming.
^ Merrick Garland is shitty as hell but has nothing to do with the filibuster. Even if he was given a hearing they would have still held his pick up. I still don't see the logic behind not giving him a hearing, the Democrats were in the minority.
I just want to point out that this is not normal either. A party typically does not prevent one of the branches of government from functioning properly because they don't like the man who picked the fucking justice.
In any conceivable scenario, modern Republicans have become one of the worst threats to American Democracy in our history, and they must now be stopped by any means necessary.
That should be an indication to you that if they had held a hearing they were afraid they'd feel political pressure to confirm him.
Preventing the seat from being filled at all for a year is also a violation of norms,
Garland wasn't given a hearing because if they allowed a vote on him, he would be confirmed. He was one of the strongest and most unquestionably Supreme Court picks in memory.
Eh, they faced plenty of outrage for not giving Garland a hearing too; I still think the end result would have been the same. The Republicans were already talking of blocking Hillary's nominees too, no matter how qualified they may have been.
Fair points though.
Also Politifcat can read minds, take a look at what got posted today:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...nate-republicans-filibuster-obama-court-nomi/
They didn't prevent the vote to quell outrage but to prevent dissent within their ranks.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Deep.
Omnipunctual Godot
Gold Member
Said the beggar, in front of a locked door out on the street.
Stop trying to be the good guys
Any idiotic coward who supports this needs to be primaried and removed from office permanently.
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