Broken Government: Have I Mentioned That We Should Make Them Filibuster?

Let’s see if those cots will still open or have they rotted from non-use. Democrats, it is time to grow up! You can’t make it much worse but you can get some of us to want to vote in the election if you get off your butt!

And Blanche Lincoln, this is aimed at you!!!

I’m with you. Evan Bayh has come out in favor of making the R’s filibuster over the weekend. Very brave of a guy with nothing to lose (me rolls eyes). Why this isn’t being discussed by politicians that might have to actually answer for it is beyond me. Is there no one with an ounce of grit in the senate today?

Good morning, KT. (Nothing beats waking up to a neighbor’s smoke alarm, maybe from blackened pancakes or french toast flambe.) Are you and Jay getting CNN face time to discuss Make Them Filibuster™ and term limits? (what times if yes?)

I was surprised when I went to Facebook and there were only 53 fans of the “Make the Republicans Filibuster Health Care” group. Just thinking we should use every weapon in the arsenal.

“Our superb TIME political team will be on CNN during the week, and in addition to the stories in this issue, we will be producing daily stories on TIME.com Karen Tumulty will be writing on the filibuster, Jay Newton-Small on term limits, Michael Scherer on bipartisanship and Massimo Calabresi on investigating government. The series is being overseen by our Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy and Daniel Eisenberg, the executive editor of TIME.com So tune in to CNN for a discussion of Broken Government starting Feb. 22, and check out our series on TIME.com
.
Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR”

.
Dear Mr Stengel,
.
You are actually saying for the first time in over two years you will actually be sending your “reporters” out into the field to do real journalism?
.
Your plan sounds good, but you do understand that most of the time, we simply get copy and paste with personal comments about stories already published here in the swamp?
.
Did you also set up standards of behavior for your jounalilsts? Instruct them to check their bias at the door? That they should REPORT rather than regurgitate talking points, (mainly it is a liberal bias)?
.
While the Government for the most part ranks down at the level of a used Car Salesman/woman, or that of the local drug dealer for favorability ratings. The Press is merely a click or two above them. Somewhere on the level of a snake oil salesman/woman or a telemarketer.
.
Our Republic has historically worked very well, and trust in our government has been at minimal moderate, with the exception of the past 9 years. Part of the reason for the distrust, is our anger also at the media for failing to do their job.
.
Rather than “producing daily”, I would be happy with ONE great story a week which exposed the corruption, fraud, and big deal making that goes on in Washington on a daily basis. A report that exposes the real truth about health care reform that is all about curbing and cutting the cost of health care and how they plan to do that for us in Washington.
.
The people have a voice, they have spoken loudly. Now it is your turn to “tell the story, tell the truth” for the first time in the past 10 years. That is the only way we shall see anything which will benefit the people of this country. That is the only way we shall see a government which works for the people instead of themselves or their lobbyist buddies.
.
This is your last chance, Mr Stengel. A last chance to prove you are part of the solution and not part of the problem. With the advent of the internet, we are no longer dependent upon you to bring us the “news”. We are fully capable to do it on our own now, if we choose. I for one would rather have a non-partial news organization do it. But, they must also be credible and fair. They must remain outside of the political posturing we see on a daily basis. They need to put down their ideological hat, and adorn their heads with blinders.
.
The American people are not that demanding. We simply want to be told the truth. Try it, you may actually think it is a great idea!!

It doesn’t seem to me that he says he’s sending his team out to _learn_ anything, just that they’re on CNN to _talk_ about stuff that they picked up by osmosis.
.
CNN seems to be somewhat of a “down the hall” jaunt, too, kinda like the guys trading their hats back and forth to get rich.
.
To figure out ‘broken government’, start by getting out of DC.

Bayh’s reminiscing about his father’s era provides an interesting point.
.
That was an era, as he says, when a Republican like Everett Dirksen would ask how he could help a Democrat like Birch Bayh get re-elected. There was a real friendship between the two. But neither side had any problem making the other actually filibuster if it came to it.
.
These days, there’s nothing but personal animosity between much of the party — I doubt Mitch McConnell would have asked Evan what he could do for his re-election — and yet they’re still afraid to force one another to really filibuster. A simple announcement of intention is honored as the real thing.
.
It’s the weirdest thing. They used to have personal friendship paired with a professional code of conduct with set rules. Now they have personal animosity but give each other all kinds of phony professional deference.

Let them filibuster. Let blame for the lack of progress in Washington lie firmly on the proper sholders. It’s not like there is a lot getting done anyhow.

I seems 30 years ago liberals were howling aobut how the US was un-governable. The US at the time was saddled with an incompetent named Jimmy Carter as president.
=
Fast forward to today, we have another incompetent liberal name Barack Obama as President and the left through its wholly-owned subsidiary, the MSM is again complaining about the un-governable US. What we have, in effect is a group that whenever they can’ pass an agenda the majority of the country finds unpalatable, tey deem the US un-governable.
=
To be fair, maybe we should examine why it may be ungovernable. Government spending has gone from 7% to 45% of GDP. Public sector union members (7.9 million) outnumber private sector unions members (7.4 million) and public union employees even though they produce nothing out earn the private sector union members.
=
Given those statistics, it could be reasoned that the government is unmanageable but that is a long way from showing the US is ungovernable.
=
Our founding fathers understood how a sound government needs to function far better than a temper tantrum group of liberal journalists will ever understand.

It’s really the best proposal out there but the Senate will never go for it and the President seems unwilling to wade into any sort of fracas over Senate rules. I think what we need is a nobinding House resolution calling for a return to the filibuster of old. It would have to be nonbinding because the House can’t make rules for the Senate but it would still call attention to the issue.

Lord, no:

Karen Tumulty will be writing on the filibuster, Jay Newton-Small on term limits, Michael Scherer on bipartisanship and Massimo Calabresi on investigating government. The series is being overseen by our Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy and Daniel Eisenberg
.
Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR

KT –the only one to have an original idea– aside, this cast of miserables is sure to produce reams of tedious Beltway CW and insipid Village dogma.
.
Thank God Michael Duffy is there to “oversee” the inclusion of enough center-right pablum to appear nonthreatening to the legions of imaginary suburbanites he fantasizes are his audience (and enough horse-race gibberish to bore the crap out of actual readers).
.
After receiving her email, Jay Newton-Small must have raced to the bathroom to privately retch up the prospective boredom of her daily “contributions”. Can’t you just hear her on the floor next to the porcelain muttering “Term limits? I get to write a daily feature on term limits? Oh God, here it comes…”
.
The hilarity of Calabresi stenographing anonymous government official after anonymous political operative on “investigating government” is just too absurd to talk about.
.
Scherer gets the false-equivalence gold, though. Scherer gets to show how ironic it is day after day, as one party’s rhetoric is compared to the other’s, all with the sniffy, brow-arching air of ennui-laden superiority. I can’t wait to learn how everyone is equally hypocritical and phony. Maybe he’ll do us a favor and reprint excerpts from Catcher in the Rye along with each daily episode of “How Jaded is My Pose? (with Michael Scherer)”.
.
I wonder whose idea it was to pose that “bipartisanship” was worthy of a daily feature?
.
Was it center-rightist, savvy doctrinaire Rick Stengel? It does look like it might have the unmistakable imprimatur his limited IQ. His bipartisan fetish, poverty of creativity and bubble-speak are legendary, so I wouldn’t put it past him to lay the fail down this thick. I’ll bet he can’t wait to get on Tweety’s show to talk about the new daily dose of teh (official) stupid.
.
Well, at least it can’t be worse than “Mouthpiece Theater,” right?

Broken Government,
I don’t know if the Time magazine article of March 1 is supposed to be part of this series. It is titled “Why Washington’s Tied Up in Knots”. If it is, I have little faith in this Time/CNN project. The article by and large blames the Republicans for almost all the problems in our broken government.
Any real unbiased reporting would find that both parties share the blame for the problems in governing.
Until Time and CNN start giving fair and balanced reporting, their articles will always be pure garbage.
Accurate reporting knows that there are two sides to every story and truth is usually somewhere in between. Notice that I said “usually”. In the past when I have made this statement of truth, some closed minded person comes up with a few exceptions and claims the concept is therefore not true. That’s why I said “usually somewhere in between”.

KT – did you hear the discussion on Morning Edition today?

Senate Democrats Want To Rein In Filibusters

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123960846

Stuart, there’s more to it than that.
.
As Peter Beinart, David Von Drehle and Newt Gingrich note in their stories that are part of our “frozen government” cover package, trust in government is extremely low these days.
.
Gingrich writing an article on bipartisanship should be all we need to make us understand the problems. I’m sure he has solutions as well.

So sad, but so true.

Gingrich? The self-described “congressional bomb-thrower” is going to lecture the world on bipartisanship?
.
I guess Grover Norquist — he of “bipartisanship is another word for ‘date rape’” — was otherwise occupied.

Thanks! Another endorsement — this one, from the Brookings Institution’s Darrell West. I’ve posted an update (and given you a new job title).

stuart:
.
You are starting to sound like Glenn Beck and his parody of the Washington Main Stream Media Elites.
.

“Scherer gets the false-equivalence gold, though. Scherer gets to show how ironic it is day after day, as one party’s rhetoric is compared to the other’s, all with the sniffy, brow-arching air of ennui-laden superiority. I can’t wait to learn how everyone is equally hypocritical and phony. Maybe he’ll do us a favor and reprint excerpts from Catcher in the Rye along with each daily episode of “How Jaded is My Pose? (with Michael Scherer)”.

.
Do you have a pipe in your mouth, and have a New York/New England-like accent when you write this stuff?

When exactly did “filibuster” supplant “3/5 majority”? The screeching halt of a true filibuster would certainly shine a spotlight upon those holding up the governing process and their motives (for better or worse). Something lost in the current cloud of spin that hovers over Washington.

Any real unbiased reporting would find that both parties share the blame for the problems in governing.
.
“Unbiased”, maybe. Accurate, no.
.
An unbiased report on the shape of the earth would, by your measure, have to include the opinion of the membership of the Flat Earth Society to achieve your concept of fairness and balance.
.
The resulting report would be neither acccurate or enlightening, except as a referendum on the midset of those who have to include all opinions for “unbiased-ness”, but who aren’t really interested in an accurate description of events.
.
“Drop anchor and dig your heels in” is NOT a real governing philosophy… and bi-partisanship is not a viable plan when one side has shown no interest in participating.
.
More tribal “but the other side does it too” gaming of the so-call “liberal media” refs…

Stu,
.
Wall Street SHOULD call for Gingrich to be on more. Sales of new TVs would go up accordingly, as viewers went to WalMart to replace the ones hit by flying shoes whenever he’s on.
.
I know I’M strongly tempted…

Ah shucks! Thanks.
.
Interesting reminder by Ornstein in that NPR piece that this will be harder on the majority than the minority because they have to maintain a quorum while the minority only has to have one person there. That may be technically true, but I think the optics would be terrible for the minority in that case.

Get rdw56 in here and I think we have the entire “Wingnuts – Collector’s Edition Bobbleheads” set present.

Nope, sorry, my bad. That would require spob too. But I don’t anticipate too long a wait for that to occur.

Unfortunately afguy, there is not enough room on this entire blog to list all of the left wing nut jobs. I understand the lefts push here for health care since the leading cause of mental illness is liberalism

free,
.
On behalf of the assorted liberal cretins, embeciles, nutjobs, and mental cases present here in the Swampland, we thank you for your compliment and acknowledgement.
.
Stu, did I forget anyone?

God [slaps palm to forehead], how could I have forgotten the liberal “pinheads”?
.
They deserve to be recognized too.

liberal “pinheads = reeking redundancy

Afguy,
In your prior posts you accused me of being unable to see that some liberals are not unreasonable. You then make a post like the above were you are unable to understand that the Methods used by Obama and the Democrats on HCR have totally discouraged any bipartisanship. I could argue for hours about how the Democrats have chosen to pass a healthcare bill without letting any Real Republican input into its creation. I’m sure you could do the same from the liberal point of view. That accomplishes nothing. Both parties share in the blame for the problems with the HCR bill.
Obama and the Democrats believed with a majority in both houses that they didn’t need to have Republicans help to pass a HCR bill. Only after they found that they could not get all Democrats on board did they try to win over a few Republicans.
This was obviously not a sincere bipartisan effort by the Democrats.
Until liberals and conservatives are willing to admit that HCR will not work without both parties working together no real HCR is possible.

Rustydog:
.
Are you saying that I’m beginning to resemble the late William F. Buckley?
.
link to rare footage of Buckley at his finest

stuart: Bill Buckley never sounded more…Bill Buckley.

afguy(Speaker-to-Furniture): Bobbleheads collection or an Art Van dining room set…?

kbang!!!
.
‘Morning. And… yup. I go with the mahogany dinette set. Hardest wood… and resistant to the influence outside cleansing agents.

shorter 3x: It’s Obama’s and the Dem’s fault that the GOP never tried to put anything CONSTRUCTIVE out on the table, then voting against their own ideas and proposals.
.
If they had just been reasonable and agreed to everything we asked… we STILL would have voted NO as a bloc.
.
NOTHING still would have happened, but wouldn’t it have been soo..soo..bipartisan.
.
Like I said…. so….very….tribal.

This week…we at TIME are beginning a series of reports on “Broken Government.”

You’re just now noticing that something’s wrong? This should have been done half a year ago, followed by a hypercritical examination of the media’s inability or unwillingness to call strikes and fouls.

As usual, y’all are six months behind the rest of the population.

Michael Scherer on bipartisanship

If he was alive at the time, Scherer would have written in his trademark passive-neutral-aggressive voice about how Jews and Nazis both contributed to the Holocaust.

Ms. Tumulty:

Can you produce one piece of evidence demonstrating that you, Time magazine, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSDNC, NPR, the New York Times-Democrat, the Washington Post-Democrat, the Associated (with terrorists) Press, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Oprah, Entertainment Tonight, HBO, the Food Network, Starbucks, et al., ever denounced Democrat filibusters or ever cried “broken government” when Democrats stopped legislation supported by Republicans? Good luck in your search ….

Or, at the VERY least, how “opinions differ” as to its causes… and who the REAL victims were.

…Associated (with terrorists) Press…
.
Mmmmmm [strokes index fingers together]… textee…. Ron Fournier’s gonna be mad at youuuu…

Hahahahahaha! I just heard that the leftist political advocacy group based in Atlanta called Castro News Network will be running a “special” this week on … wait … wait … wait … “Broken Government”!!!

Translation for those unfamiliar with Time magazine, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSDNC, NPR, the New York Times-Democrat, the Washington Post-Democrat, the Associated (with terrorists) Press, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Oprah, Entertainment Tonight, HBO or the Food Network: “Broken Government”, according to the above named political advocacy groups, means Republicans are preventing the political preferences of the above named political advocacy groups from becoming law.

Glad you asked. We didn’t start Swampland until January, 2007, so I didn’t have this kind of platform. But I did write about the Democrats’s use of the filibuster during the 2005 debate over the “nuclear option”:
.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1064469,00.html
.
The younger Senators contend that if anybody is trashing the traditions of the institution, it is the Democrats, who are abusing a weapon that earlier generations reserved for only the gravest matters. In the entire 19th century, the filibuster was used only 22 times; now Democrats regularly filibuster dozens of times a year. And until the Democrats started filibustering judges two years ago, the measure was almost never used to defeat a President’s judicial nominee. Since then, they have used the filibuster to block 10 of Bush’s picks–seven of whom he has renominated, in part to provoke this week’s showdown. Democrats say what they are doing is no worse than the Republicans’ preferred tactic when Bill Clinton was President: making sure controversial nominations never got past the Judiciary Committee, which was controlled by the Republicans.
.
And even as far back as 1996, I wrote of Tom Daschle as leader of the “block party,” even though Dems weren’t using the filibuster as much as the GOP is now:
.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,984296,00.html
.
But to the surprise of his allies and his foes, the South Dakota Democrat has proved remarkably skillful at marshaling his outnumbered Senate forces into an almost insurmountable obstacle to the G.O.P. agenda. One by one, they have buried almost every item in the Contract with America. And where the G.O.P. has managed to get critical bills passed in the Senate–on welfare reform, for instance–the Democrats have generally reshaped them, sanding off enough of the ideological edges to sour the victory for many Republicans.
.
…So far it seems to be working. Last week, under pressure from Daschle’s troops, Senate Republicans dismayed their counterparts in the House when they added $2.7 billion for education demanded by Clinton to a spending bill that would keep the government operating for the rest of the year. In scoring these victories, Daschle has a time-honored weapon at his disposal, one that Dole put to good use in the past–the filibuster. With enough party discipline, it makes the minority leader unstoppable. Whereas House Democrats have regularly fractured, Senate Democrats have yet to lose the seven defectors it would take to break a Daschle-backed filibuster.

Stu, did I forget anyone?
.
Assclowns?
.
Dullards?
.
Narcoleptics?

afguy,

If you checked the facts you would have found out that the Republicans in both houses of congress made over 100 suggested amendments and 99% of them were voted down by 100% of the Democratic senators and congressman present to vote.
Your twisting of the facts does nothing to help solve the problems.
Stop trying to say one side is a fault and the other is not. It’s either a lie or you are totally misinformed.
How can you accuse me of being the one with the closed mind when you take illogical positions like this?

…Or on how phony and cynical all parties in the “conflict” over South African Apartheid are, and how the Mandelas’ arguments that the bantustans represent “an unjust system” can be successfully undermined, given their ties to certain extremist groups and evidence of some shady personal dealings.

You sound just like Question Hillary (TM).

Ms. Tumulty:

Thanks, but I asked for evidence of you or the others I listed having “denounced” the Democrats for their filibusters. The pieces you cite are CELEBRATING the Democrats’ filibusters ….

Nice try ….

CONSTRUCTIVE ideas, 3x,with emphasis on the CONSTRUCTIVE part…
.
Not the rear guard crap merely designed to drag out the process until the messsaging wizards could catch up with a proper attack “talking point”…

As for being called “dishonest” by you…
.
I’ll take that as a compliment.

KT:
.
By the speed at which you zapped that complaint, it appears as if you’ve somehow become accustomed to the rightists’ endless working of the refs…

textee,
As a moderate-conservative I feel many of your posts are over the top. Much like many of the liberal posts on this site.
Your above posts were quite good. They got Karen to show some balance and report on past Democratic abuse of the filibuster rule.
I’m sure this was quite educational for all the liberals on this site. Of course they will either ignore the facts or try to sweep them under the rug or maybe claim they are not true.
Facts are so inconvenient to liberal minded people.

I’m not denouncing the Republicans for their filibusters at all. I love filibusters. I want more. Real ones.

Can you find any evidence that I have “denounced” the Republicans for their filibusters? I think what they are doing is working for them.

3x:
.
Actually, I was linking to past stories that showed I reported on Democratic filibusters in real time, even as they were happening. If textee were more familiar with my work (or better at The Google), he might have known that.

Ms. Tumulty:

Good question. Standby …. While you standby, you might want to seek cover and put on your kevlar helmet and body armor. I suspect that I’ll have enough ammunition to melt the barrel on my .50 cal machine gun.

I did denounce Coburn for making the poor clerks read the health care bill out loud to an empty chamber, but that’s an entirely different issue.

*crickets*

Ah, yes, the “classics”…

As a moderate-conservative…
.
Good one, 3x… good one – almost had us.
.
Then you blew it with the last sentence in your post.

You sound just like Question Hillary (TM).
.
Who, as we all know, was a REAL moderate-conservative”…

They got Karen to show some balance and report on past Democratic abuse of the filibuster rule.
.
…So that, when the GOP does something that could be portrayed negatively right now, rightists can then point to reporting that can be exploited to suggest that both sides are equally to blame, thus deflecting current criticism.
.
This fruits of this tactic –that reporters race to couch their coverage in equivalence as a matter of routine– are still trumpeted simultaneously with denunciations of the “liberal media”, interestingly enough.
.
Yes, it did “get Karen” to take the usual refuge in equivalence against the rightists whenever they work the refs. No wonder they continue to do it.

SZ: I wasn’t taking refuge. That was reporting that I did years ago. My point was that I took note of the Democrats using the filibuster as a tactic WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING. This is not something I just woke up to when the Republicans started doing it. And I don’t (never have) faulted the minority for doing it; I fault the majority for whining about it, rather than calling them on it.

“That may be technically true, but I think the optics would be terrible for the minority in that case.”
.
I hope that you’re right and people start to see (and I can barely believe that this still needs to happen) who’s preventing government from functioning to solve our national problems but let’s remember, the minority party has one big advantage on the national stage: they get to lie with relative impunity.
.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/02/22/shocker-the-gop-not-impressed-with-obamas-health-care-plan/

Stuart,

When I studied for my MBA one thing I learned was that good decision making is not really that difficult. If you have as much factual information as possible and you do a good job of analyzing this information, good decision are relatively easy to make.
From many of the comments made on this site, it appeared that many individuals thought that Republicans were the only one that ever abused the use of the filibuster rule. I thought if everyone had the complete factual story, than we could have more meaningful discussions.
I have been gone for over a week. Thanks for the links on the Third Way. It was helpful to better understand how liberals view each other and those they call centralist.
Also did you get the links I sent you on The Rasmussen Report?

KT:

This is not something I just woke up to when the Republicans started doing it.

I know that, you know that, and anybody who bothered to Google your name and the word “filibuster” would see that you’ve been saying the same things for years:

MATTHEWS: Yes. And there‘s three or four forces at work here. One is loyalty. So, most Republicans want to stick with the leadership, say 49 out of 55, right? They want to stick with him. The other six are pulled by what forces, Karen? What forces them? What pulled them away from the leadership?
.
TUMULTY: Well, there are a number of forces.
.
Some of them are very senior senators. They know what it feels like to be in the minority. They know it could happen to them again someday. And they don‘t want to lose these rights. There is also a respect for tradition in the Senate. This is a place that is as tradition-bound as any institution that you are going to find. They do not change the rules lightly. And, finally, there are a number of moderates in this—in this group. And they know that, if they lose this, essentially, the possibility of a moderate voice on any issue that comes in front of the Senate is now gone.

The point is that this kind of criticism is rote, reflexive, partisan and uninterested in any meaningful examination of journalism.
.
When you defend yourself by bringing up the other side from a decade ago –instead of pushing back by calling “working the refs” what it is– you’re validating that partisan tactic, since those calling this reporting evidence of your “liberal bias” are specifically demanding that you “say something bad about Democrats, if we’re so wrong about you.”
.
Sadly, it cannot be said enough that, in your reporting, you fault the Democratic majority for allowing obstruction to be effective. Inevitably, that fact won’t get you off the hook with people who demand a “fair and balanced” alternative to you, KT.
.
Retreating into a “here’s what I said about the other side when they were in the minority” shell is taking (ultimately ineffective) refuge from the demands, instead of faulting the demands for being a predictable, partisan tactic (when they are not real criticism).
.
Look, I’m not trying to give you a hard time for engaging rightist critiques, but when you say “I took note of the Democrats using the filibuster as a tactic WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING,” doesn’t that obscure your own point, if you’ve faulted the Democratic majority now, KT? Isn’t that exactly what makes working the refs such a successful tactic?

Assclowns?
.
Dullards?
.
Narcoleptics?

==

Ah the Secret Service code names for the Democratic Congressional Leadership

“And I don’t (never have) faulted the minority for doing it; I fault the majority for whining about it, rather than calling them on it.”
.
I’m curious. Is there any point at which you feel that the use of the filibuster is abusive or is it just fine for the minority to use it to block essentially all legislation by the majority?

shepherd: call me an idealist, but i have great faith in the self-corrective nature of our political system and the wisdom of the electorate. when people overreach, they tend to get smacked for it.
.
oh, and i also think they should make them filibuster.

“…when people overreach, they tend to get smacked for it.”
.
I’ll take that as a “yes”. Thank you, Karen.

I miss SCTV. Funny show, funny participants.
You know, I also miss Buckley’s Firing Line PBS show. He always looked like he was about to flip backwards in his chair.
However, there were some good debates on that show and his debate series. Unlike Fox news, he didn’t have weak Democratic shills representing the left. He had strong advocates.
Ken Galbraith, James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Carl Sagan, et al.
Although I couldn’t agree with Buckley on most issues, he made the debates interesting.
If ever there was an elitist, it was Buckley. He certainly was an intellectual Yalie. I doubt he would find a voice with the tea party.
Buckley did support the legalization of marijuana, came out against the Iraq war, admitted he was wrong on opposing civil rights, approved Jimmy Carter returning the canal to Panama. He banished the John Birch Society from the conservative movement. They were back for CPAC. Like his son, I am sure he would not approve of the direction of the National Review.
This doesn’t mean he wasn’t an unreformed conservative. But, always interesting.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/21/838268/-What-stands-in-the-way-of-forcing-a-filibuster
This is a break down by David Waldman on why a filibuster is a very, very difficult process to invoke. What do you think of his overview?

On this 278th anniversary of George Washington’s birthday, it seems fitting to add this quote to the thread “broken government”:
.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.”

I tried that yesterday. Plus noting the fact that Republicans can, and probably would, simply stand there before the cameras and lie through their teeth with little push-back from the press. Safe to say that Karen is firmly committed to make them filibuster!
.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/02/21/evan-bayh-make-them-filibuster/comment-page-1/#comment-136159

Let me add that, like you, I always had faith in the “wisdom” of the electorate. That is, until I watched the Republican Party systematically corrupt the political press to the point where the people have very little idea what’s actually being done to them or, perhaps more importantly, by whom.

apr:
It is indeed very difficult. In fact, it is a major inconvenience. You have to keep a quorum on the floor. They won’t be able to go off to their fundraisers in the evening. It will take up a lot of floor time. (Though, if you’ve ever seen the Senate in “action,” there’s plenty of dead air there.) But it is entirely doable, with some discipline and commitment.

Karen: Thanks for the feedback. Believe me, I hope the Dems go for it.