The Levee's Gonna BreakFollow

Joph. If you're going to quote an ancient thread, could you at least link it so that we can get the context? I'm still looking for that particular thread, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I was talking about non-judicial appointments (like cabinet stuff), which btw I also made the same point about with regard to Obama appointments.



Yeah. That's a pretty big whoops. Massively huge. I've been very consistent that I think it's wrong for the minority party to block temporary position appointments, since those are just part of an administration and can and should change based on the party who holds the presidency. Judicial appointments are a whole different ball of wax since in may cases (especially courts on the top end of our constitutional path) we make great efforts to balance the number of conservative and liberal leaning judges specifically so that we don't have skewed courts that just rule in favor of whichever party appointed them.

Since these appointments last past the term of the president who appointed them, the use of the filibuster to prevent tilting is critically important.

What's really happening with the DC circuit court is that the court has historically been balanced (as you finally got around to admitting), and the Dems want to break the tradition of appointing judges in pairs, with each party more or less choosing the short list of applicants for each seat. It's not the GOP trying to "hold onto their advantage" as you originally claimed, but a blatant attempt by the Dems to create a political advantage for themselves. And in the process they are breaking a long standing political agreement between the parties.

I'll repeat what I said earlier. It's a terrible act to take. The Dems have more or less just broken a major check within our system of government. I'm sure they're assuming that's ok since they broke it in their favor, but in the long run that really doesn't matter. It's broken. And judicial appointments will become far far more about blatantly putting "your guy" into position to endorse "your agenda".


Sad thing is that there are tons of folks on the left who know this, but either seem to not realize the danger to democracy it represents, or don't care. I was tuned into the progressive station on XM this afternoon, and the moron on the radio basically sat there for about 30 minutes gushing about why being able to avoid a filibuster was great because Obama would finally be able to simply appoint judges to that court that would rule in favor of his agenda and then the Democrats could just "get things done". It was kinda chilling. He honestly seemed to not realize that he was basically saying that this was a great thing because it meant that a party could more easily bypass the democratic process. Don't need to pass laws anymore, just decide to do things at the executive level and if you have judges in the right courts who'll say that what you're doing is constitutional, you get to do it.

It's a path to tyranny made more likely by an incredibly short sighted decision. No agenda today is worth doing that IMO.

Found the thread in question, and have done a quick scan through every post I've ever made with the word "filibuster" in it (there's about 4 pages of them). I've consistently supported the use of the filibuster when used to oppose legislation. I've consistently opposed the use of the filibuster for simple executive appointments. Interestingly, I haven't found any post be myself specifically speaking about judicial appointments (all comments I made in the past were in relation to staffing type appointments).


So... Pretty darn consistent.

You're very obviously speaking about it in general. This is ignoring the fact that the GOP has also filibustered a crapload of executive appointments so if you want to start saying that the GOP is wrong for it, now's your chance.

Again, you're a liar and a hypocrite. That's fine and to the surprise of no one. Have fun backpedaling and acting all indignant thought.

Edited, Nov 22nd 2013 5:11pm by Jophiel

Went searching for Levee Breaks lyrics about mean ol' Joph and found some trivia I liked. During rehearsals Led Zeppelin accidentally found that the drum kit sounded awesome played from the bottom of a stairwell while the band was upstairs. So they recorded it in the studio at the base of the stairs with the microphone hanging at the top. The sound mixer got a distinct sound on the harmonica by displacing the echo of the harmonica so that it played in front of the harmonica notes that caused it.

So... you missed, for instance, the two year filibuster of Richard Cordray? Who ultimately did get to take his post but only because of the previous deal intended to prevent eliminating the filibuster?

I mean, I never heard you criticize it or anything. Maybe you just knew nothing about it (that seems very likely on its own).

I never heard you complain about it either. So it really must not have been that big of a deal. You've constantly rattled off the "GOP filibuster everything!" rhetoric though, so I'll just assume you prefer to make the broad argument but not actually defend or condemn single instances.


You're also cherry picking cases (again!). This isn't about blocking an ordinary appointment. This is about blocking the appointment of a director to a brand new federal agency which the GOP believes was created in haste and with far too much power. It's not about the guy in the post in this case. But that's not going to stop you from suggesting that this is some kind of unfair use of the filibuster just to be obstructionist.

How about you find me a non-controversial example. Someone who's filling an existing post, for an existing organization, which has been filled by a whole list of people in the past and under other presidents, which is temporary in term (so the next administration can refill the position of they want), but which for some reason is being filibustered by the GOP. I mean, it would seem to me that if your arguing that the GOP is using the filibuster just to be obstructionist, and has no legitimate political reasons to put these holds in place (or vote against cloture), then you should have a ton of examples where that's clearly the case, right? I mean, the strongest examples would be those for which there is no rational reason to block the appointments *if* the objective was just to be obstructionist, so why is it that every example the left keeps tossing out there end out being examples where the GOP has very good reasons to block the appointments.


So far, we've got judicial appointments to the DC circuit court designed specifically to skew the court in favor of the Dems so they can find their new/expanded use of executive power to be constitutional and appointment of a director to exactly such a newly created and overpowered executive organization. Those would seem to be incredibly weak arguments for your side to make Joph. Hell. Those are pretty much poster children for arguing when the filibuster should be used.

When your "objective measure" is so broad as to include "someone heard a rumor that someone might block this" as prof of obstruction, then yeah.

The Dems aren't sabotaging their own agenda Smash. Their agenda *is* the PR. You really haven't been paying attention to national politics over the last 12 years or so if you think otherwise. We can debate why, the the Dems have realized that the only way to actually pursue the increasingly unpopular agenda that the far left wants of them, they must engage is massive PR to demonize the political right. The 2000 election was a wake up call for them, and they've responded by basically pulling out all the stops and haven't let up since.

And since then, it has *not* been about trying to convince the people that the ideas and platform of the left is good, but that those of the right are bad. And this is accomplished by a constant barrage of "GOP bad!!!" messages. The whole "party of no!" bit is just one part of that.

The Obama administration has shown an utter inability to accomplish anything unless it has a super majority in congress. So yeah, ridiculous or not, their primary objective right now (and for the last several years) is to regain that super majority. So if deliberately taking actions they know the other side will block so they can blame the other side for blocking it helps them, they'll do that. You honestly think that's not the strategy here?


I'm really curious: How many people honestly don't see what's going on here? I mean, the Obama administration has intentionally refused to appoint a balanced set of judges to the DC court (unlike past administrations who appoint in right/left pairs), choosing instead to demand that only liberal judges be appointed or none will be. And the filibustering of those tradition breaking appointments is labeled as "obstructionist" by the political left. Is it really hard to noodle out that this is intentional? They are intentionally taking actions they know the other side must oppose. So yeah, they're absolutely setting this whole situation up.

What's sad is how many people seem to actually fall for it.

They're my requirements Joph. I get to decided what meets them, not you. The fact that I failed to specifically spell out "appointments to newly created positions with far reaching power and authority that the minority party doesn't think should exist", doesn't mean that had that specific case come up at the time I wrote my requirements, I would not have included it.

Guess what? I would have. And if you paid attention to the rationale I've consistently used instead of slavishly jumping on the literal words, you would have known that.


Can we please not lose sight of the forest for the trees? We're discussing when it's appropriate for the minority party to use a filibuster. You've argued that doing so for no valid political reason other than to be obstructionist is wrong. And I've agreed with that. However, when you come up with examples of the GOP using the filibuster, you keep using ones in which the GOP has some valid political reason other than just being obstructionist.

If you honestly want to know whether or not I have a problem with the use of filibuster in any given case, present the case and I'll give you an answer. But you seem to just want to play a semantic gotcha game (seems to be a common theme for you).


Oh. And just in case you are really really confused, I'll explain the rationale. To me, the purpose of the filibuster in our political system is to prevent a "one vote; one time" scenario. We give the minority the power to block anything they want, knowing that if they use that power capriciously or pointlessly, they'll suffer politically for it (and perhaps continue to be the minority party for a long time). But we give them that power as a check against the majority party using its power to actually re-write the rules so as to give them an unfair advantage politically. This is a problem in many democracy's because if they lack this, one party gains power, changes the rules, and then they only have a democracy on paper from then on.


I support the use of the filibuster in any case where the minority party is blocking that sort of power grab by the majority party. Because that's precisely why the filibuster exists. And while we can debate any single specific case with regards to how legitimate it is, the idea of actually removing the filibuster for an entire set of actions is a horrible mistake to make. I'm not really kidding or exaggerating when I say that this will break our democracy. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but this change will end out being a disaster long term.

If you think I'm lying, then you go find evidence of it. I'm not going to go find quotes of myself to prove positions I already know I hold.

Go find evidence that you never said it? That's some fine logic going on, Slylock Fox.

I suppose if I was constantly shown to be a liar and a hack, I'd try and make it the other guy's fault as well.

Edited, Nov 25th 2013 9:48pm by Jophiel

Well, if Gbaji wants to say he's "evolved" from thinking Bush should get whatever nominees he wants to Obama should only get nominees that are GOP approved, I don't think anyone would argue with his "evolution". Or be even mildly surprised.

When your "objective measure" is so broad as to include "someone heard a rumor that someone might block this" as prof of obstruction, then yeah.


That could be what "objective" means...

Or, you know, counting.

http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2010/07/pdf/judicial_confirmations.pdf

Well, americanprogress.org is clearly an objective source, right? Lol!


Um... Smash? Ever consider that Obama's judicial nominees are being held up at an historic rate because he's attempting to appoint overtly partisan judges to key positions at an unprecedented rate? Most presidents realize that their appointments can potentially be blocked by the minority party so they engage in this amazing thing called negotiating with the minority party prior to nominating anyone so as to ensure that obstacles don't happen. And what that means is that a bit of horse trading goes on. He agrees to appoint X judges off the minority party list out of a set of X+Y judges, and in return they don't block any of them.

That's how every president that doesn't end out with a sub 50% confirmation rate does it. Obama, on the other hand, has deliberately chosen to say FU to the GOP, refuses to negotiate, and refuses to compromise on appointments, and then sits around acting shocked and surprised when his nominees get holds put on them.

Shocking! Oh wait. it's not. It's exactly what one would expect would happen if you don't engage with the minority party. And it's being done deliberately so that Obama and the Dems can play the victim card against that evil evil GOP. I'll repeat my earlier statement: The sad part is that so many people fall for this. This is not about GOP obstructionism. This is entirely about a president refusing to partake in even the most basic bi-partisan actions.

Edited, Nov 25th 2013 9:28pm by gbaji