filibuster [ˈfiləˌbəstər] NOUN an action such as a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required procedures. "it was defeated by a Senate filibuster in June" synonyms: delaying tactics · stonewalling · procrastination · obstruction · delaying · blocking · holdup · speechifying · speechification · kicking the can down the road historical a person engaging in unauthorized warfare against a foreign country. VERB (filibustering) act in an obstructive manner in a legislature, especially by speaking at inordinate length.
Hmmm
I always thought it was a tool the minority side of the aisle could use to keep the majority side from pushing an agenda unless, a bipartisan agreement could be reached. It's a changing world we are living in. Like sands through the hour glass, so go the days of our lives.
During the Trump administration, the filibuster was used how many times and by who? Can you say HYPOCRITES?
[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 03-27-2021).]
I do think some filibusters have had racist intentions, absolutely. But that doesn’t make the act racist in and of itself.
But, I just heard the President state so...... And yet, back when he was Senator Biden, he defended the filibuster. Throwing the "race card" seems to be the in thing today.
Well, this thread really wasn't intended to be about racism but, carry on with it as you will.
The intent was to show the hypocrisy of the Democrats who used the filibuster hundreds of times to kill Trump era legislation but, now that the shoe is on the other foot want to do away with the filibuster so Republicans can't slow or stop their agenda. Obviously, I'm failing at changing the Democratic Party from within.
I have long held that the filibuster should be eliminated and replaced by a rule that ALL new legislation require a two thirds majority. There are far to many laws as it is and so many of them are opposed by half of the country.
In short, no law should be passed without widespread, bipartisan support.
Oh, and Leonard Cohen was a great song writer, even if he was Canadian. I have been a fan for fifty years.
[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 03-27-2021).]
I have long held that the filibuster should be eliminated and replaced by a rule that ALL new legislation require a two thirds majority. There are far to many laws as it is and so many of them are opposed by half of the country.
In short, no law should be passed without widespread, bipartisan support.
I could easily agree with that 2/3rd rule. Neither party has all the right answers.
Racism has been effectively redefined. What is now called racism is really bigotry. The old version of racism has been redefined as White Supremacy. Why? Because only whites can be racists. It’s damn effective at silencing any discussion about anything one person doesn’t like. Just call the other person a racist, you win.
... should be eliminated and replaced by a rule that ALL new legislation require a two thirds majority. There are far to many laws as it is and so many of them are opposed by half of the country.
In short, no law should be passed without widespread, bipartisan support.
Although I could get behind that, ... "replaced by a rule that ALL new legislation require a two thirds majority" ?
In this case, a rule is being proposed to replace another rule. That would also have to be included with a requirement of a two thirds majority. I also propose that any new rule go into effect in the next Senate term, where they might think twice, three times.
Racism has been effectively redefined. What is now called racism is really bigotry. The old version of racism has been redefined as White Supremacy. Why? Because only whites can be racists. It’s damn effective at silencing any discussion about anything one person doesn’t like. Just call the other person a racist, you win.
Even speech that isn't bigoted is falsely called racist. Quoting fbi violent crime stats by racial breakdown, for instance. Just quoting them is raciat.
Similarly, racially insensitive speech is falsely called racism.
[This message has been edited by sourmash (edited 03-28-2021).]
The U.S. Constitution was created after the Articles of Confederation foundered on the "sand bar" of the supermajority requirement to get anything done.
There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that provides for the filibuster. In fact, it is anathema to what the Founders envisioned for the legislative process. Noting the standstill of the legislative process under the super-majority vote requirements of the Articles of Confederation, the Founders wrote a new Constitution fundamentally based on majority rule. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 22: “If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority ... (the government’s) situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.”
If it were up to me ( ) I would go "nuclear." Eliminate the "three-fifths" or (currently) 60 votes requirement for Cloture. I wouldn't go partway by reinstating the performative art of the "talking" filibuster.
Let the party that has the majority in the Senate pass legislation, even if it's just the Vice President's tie-breaking vote as it stands today.
The "filibuster"--which is a loose term for what is actually the 60-vote supermajority that is required for Cloture--is a "cure that's worse than the disease."
This gives me a chance to reference a Pennock's O/T topic that I created earlier this year:
I started that with an op-ed in the New York Times from that "Odious Little Leftist Troll"--oh wait, isn't that one of my own awards from the King of Scotland..?--nevertheless, Ezra Klein.
The work-around that the majority party in the Senate has often used to overcome the "filibuster" is Budget Reconciliation. That's like using a flat-head screwdriver on a Phillips head fastener. It creates more damage than it prevents.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-28-2021).]
The filibuster, in and of itself, is the equivalent of a child who screams and stomps his feet until every adult in the room drops what they are doing to grant the child his wish. However, without it we would be in a situation where if rinselberg and blackrams disagree, rinselberg always wins because one feeble old godfather chose a Brahmin bimbo from Berkeley to be your boss.
Right now, Harris runs the Senate, Pelosi runs the House and Biden runs from the light like a cockroach. DC is on the Potomac, but the country is run from the Bay.
This is their utopia:
[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 03-28-2021).]
I look to Article Three--the Judicial Branch--as the main bulwark against Benjamin Franklin's warning that "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch."
There's also the architecture of the Senate. Two Senators from every state. California's population of about 40 million, represented by two U.S. Senators. Wyoming's population of about 600 thousand, represented by two U.S. Senators. Some have speculated that the Founding Fathers never imagined that much disparity in population between individual states. Of course, that could be an argument for creating more states by dividing up California, but I'm not about to go there.
And there's Joe Manchin--although I don't think his name was written into the Constitution. That's actually just a derivative of the architecture of the Senate.
Was there actually a lot of "buzz" about the filibuster--which is more accurately the supermajority requirement for Cloture--during Trump's Presidency? This much "buzz"..? I don't remember that in such clarity.
I say let the Democrats do their "worst" (if that's your expectation) and then look to how the people vote after they've lived with it for awhile. Look to elections as the remedy.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-28-2021).]
I say let the Democrats do their "worst" (if that's your expectation) and then look to how the people vote after they've lived with it for awhile. Look to elections as the remedy.
The problem with such a philosophy is that once the damage is done, it's almost impossible to repair it. As an example, look at our southern border now. It was almost under control now, illegal crossings are almost three times higher. Only one in three Border Patrol Agents is actually patrolling. The other two are baby sitting illegals. Yeah, that's progress and taking care of America.
My guess is, those without children and/or grandchildren don't give a damn about the debt they are putting on those future generations. Dems are damn good at spending other people's money.
The latter part, those without kids, are the people placed in top spots of European nations to lead them into death of European people. Just look at how many don't have kids.
As an aside, go to duckduckgo and type in "Chlamydia Harris", then click images.
"Among the falsehoods Joe Biden mouthed at his press conference yesterday was the claim that the Senate filibuster is “a relic of the Jim Crow era.” This line originated with Barack Obama. Biden said he agrees with Obama’s assertion.
As many have pointed out, Biden defended the Senate filibuster for decades. And Obama himself defended it when he was a Senator.
Thus Biden and Obama are both hypocrites.
To make matters worse, both are peddling a false claim. The Jim Crow era extends from the mid-1870s, following the abandonment of Reconstruction by President Hayes, to 1964, when landmark civil rights legislation finally was enacted.
The filibuster predates that era. It was used before the civil war and on issues unrelated to race. For example, Democrats employed the filibuster in 1841 when they opposed legislation to create a national bank. That same year, there was a filibuster over the firing of the Senate printers.
Four years earlier, Whigs had used the filibuster against Democrats who moved to expunge from the record a Senate resolution censoring Andrew Jackson.
In reality, the filibuster was very rarely used against civil rights legislation until near the end of the Jim Crow era. It wasn’t needed for that purpose because only in the late 1940s did Congress muster much enthusiasm for passing such legislation.
Arguably, the most significant use of the filibuster until at least the 1950s occurred in 1917 and had nothing to do with race. That year, a dozen antiwar senators, led by the progressive leader Robert La Follette, filibustered legislation to arm American merchant ships against German submarines. This filibuster led, understandably, to a rule authorizing cloture (the cutting off of debate) by a two-thirds vote.
There was, however, a notable and sickening use of the filibuster against civil rights legislation in the early 1920s. Republicans, at the urging of President Harding, sought to enact an anti-lynching law. Democrats filibustered. Harding eventually had the legislation pulled so that other items on his agenda could get a vote. (In those days, filibusters were of the talking variety and thus held up the Senate.)
The filibuster was used against anti-lynching legislation in the 1930s, as well.
Civil rights legislation was filibustered routinely, and largely without success, in the 1950s and early 1960s. However, it should be clear from the foregoing discussion that the filibuster is not a relic of the Jim Crow era.
In fact, the continued existence of the filibuster owes nothing to race. It persists so that parties can’t parlay thin majorities (or in the present circumstances, no Senate majority) into the enactment of sweeping, society-transforming legislation.
Imagine what Donald Trump could have accomplished in 2017, absent the filibuster. Note, as well, that all or most of it would have been reversed, absent the filibuster, this year."
Last night, OLLWT and MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell conversed with the OLLWT of legend, Ezra Klein, about OLLWT and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's tortuous road map to passing a national infrastructure package using an unprecedented second Budget Reconciliation bill.
Budget Reconciliation, yet again, as the Senate Democrats' workaround to negate the 60-vote supermajority requirement for Cloture, or more colloquially, the "filibuster" rule. Budget Reconciliation as the way to pass the American Relief Act or "Coronavirus Relief" legislation that was the Biden administration's first legislative milestone. And now, Budget Reconciliation as the way to a national infrastructure package.
Ezra Klein: ‘I really wish Senators Manchin and Sinema would do their duty and make the Senate functional again’
quote
New York Times Opinion Columnist Ezra Klein joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer exploring options to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and the obstacles to passing President Biden’s infrastructure package.
Video content 6 minutes 40 seconds; aired March 29, 2021 on MSNBC.
If I were going to credit that fabulous phraseology, I would credit a forum member that I have very seldom credited (in a positive way.)
I don't think that the "Filibuster" as the term is being used in current news reports is inherently racist. Arguments are being argued that the opposition to S.1 includes anti-black and anti-AnythingButWhite threads in its tapestry, and the "Filibuster" plays into the prospects for the Democrat-led effort to pass this kind of legislation in the U.S. Senate.
If I were going to characterize the "Filibuster" using a single adjective, it wouldn't be "racist." It would be Dadaist. As in "Dadaist nightmare."
Does that ring a bell?
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-30-2021).]
Our southern border is being flooded and the Dems want to make sure that no one needs to show proof of citizenship to vote in the next election.
The Dems want you to disclose personal medical history before you are allowed to travel freely but our southern border is hemorrhaging Covid positive criminals.
Teachers in southern California are conducting in person classes for illegal immigrants while American children are forbidden to attend school.
Dishwashers are getting $15/hr while the Dems are planning to tax every mile you drive.
[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 03-30-2021).]
If I were going to credit that fabulous phraseology, I would credit a forum member that I have very seldom credited (in a positive way.)
I don't think that the "Filibuster" as the term is being used in current news reports is inherently racist. Arguments are being argued that the opposition to S.1 includes anti-black and anti-AnythingButWhite threads in its tapestry, and the "Filibuster" plays into the prospects for the Democrat-led effort to pass this kind of legislation in the U.S. Senate.
If I were going to characterize the "Filibuster" using a single adjective, it wouldn't be "racist." It would be Dadaist. As in "Dadaist nightmare."
Does that ring a bell?
Perhaps a word salad on Jim Crow laws could be served with some of your salad dressing.
How about the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" column awarding President Biden "Four Pinocchios" for erroneously asserting that Georgia's new voting laws require a 5pm closing time at polling locations to make it harder for working people to vote?
The Jim Crow Word Salad is temporarily off the menu. Not enough endive moving through the supply chain.
It's only tangentially related (at best) to the "Filibuster", but "Four Pinocchios" from WaPo for a Biden statement . . . does anyone here really feel like sending it back to the kitchen?
) I would go "nuclear." Eliminate the "three-fifths" or (currently) 60 votes requirement for Cloture. I wouldn't go partway by reinstating the performative art of the "talking" filibuster.
