TPM to D's: GOP FILIBUSTERS!!!

[tristano's ghost]

Marshall on Republican filibusters

No kidding, man. The Repubs are filibustering, or threatening to filibuster, every bill that comes down the pike... they're even using the procedure to try to block bills that they signed onto in votes (for political cover). And yet we're hearing nada about it in the press--whereas when the D's mentioned that they MIGHT filibuster a Supreme appointment, we heard about it non-stop.

Now, I'll agree w/Marshall only to a point that "it's not the job of the press." He's trying to make the point that the Democrats need to shake the media tree as hard as the R's did. But to some extent it IS the press' job as well--simply to offer a more accurate portrait of what's going on in the Senate right now.

In 2005 Kos argued that we should get rid of the filibuster. This was while D's were in the minority, but his point was that some day we'd control Congress again, and all kinds of good things--better health coverage, etc.--would be stopped by the R's, who've never hesitated to be obstructionist when in a minority position. Don't know if I agree with him, but it was an interesting point--and again, he made it when it looked like a Democratic Congress wouldn't be happening for YEARS.

[Scott Dolan]

There have been Republicans in the past who called for an end to the fillibuster as well.

[jesus marion joseph]

I'm not sure I want to do away with filibusters completely, as it can serve a legitimate and important purpose. I think it would help, though, if the public were more aware (and cared) of what is going on, though.

[Gary Sisco]

It's a legitimate and time-honored tactic. I'd not get rid of it.

People too often forget that sides change all the time. There will come a time when people who want a tactic done away with later find that they need it themselves. In the US, this is almost always the case.

But one of the stranger thing about the US in its two-party guise is that only one of the parties knows how to act like a unified opposition party.

[tristano's ghost]

More via TPM:

The Ploy That Dare Not Say Its Name

Here we have a headline from the New York Times ...

Senate Narrowly Backs Bush in Rejecting Debate on Increasing Time Between Deployments

Well, no, I'm sorry. That's not right. The vote was 56 to 41. A solid majority of senators supported increasing time between deployments.

Republicans blocked a vote on the bill. Say it again: They blocked a vote. They filibustered it.

Don't mistake me. I support the right of the minority party in the senate to do this, just as I did in the previous Congress when Democrats were in the minority. And I would completely oppose any effort to changes the rules, as Republicans effectively threatened to do in the previous Congress. But you can entirely support the right to filibuster, as the Republicans are now consistently doing, while also insisting that the party in question be held to account for exercising the power.

It's about accountability. Inaccurate reporting undermines accountability.

All the big press outlets seem to suddenly have forgotten how this works. The headline is Republicans block the vote. That's not spin. That's what happened.

--Josh Marshall

And that's the NY Times--the alleged bastion of "liberal media." ( )

[Scott Dolan]

Is that a conservative or right wing piece?

[Pete C]

And don't forget Sen. Phillip Buster (Steve Allen).

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Is that a conservative or right wing piece?

No, Marshall is definitely a liberal. His point is that the media, for whatever reasons, is not accurately reporting what's going on in the Senate. The NY Times piece referenced above reports that the Senate "narrowly backs Bush in rejecting debate..." No, 56 members voted to bring the bill up for a vote, and 41 senators filibustered it. There was a solid majority AGAINST Bush, but a GOP minority (plus Lieberman) blocked the vote.

JM says that he supports the concept of the filibuster, and I do too, ultimately. He's simply saying that it needs to be reported as such, as it certainly was when the D's did it (and they didn't do it very often in the past several years). It does potentially create a certain onus, that the filibustering minority will come to be seen as "the party of obstruction." That's the potential price you pay for it, and the GOP--using this tactic far more often then the D's have in recent times, in fact using it or threatening to use it on nearly every amendment to the defense spending bill--should have to pay that price, rather than be shielded from it by baloney journalism like that which Marshall cites.

[Scott Dolan]

Ah, word games.

Who cares?

If people are interested in the whole story, they'll read the article and be able to decide for themselves what happened.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

They "loyal opposition" the left was championing a few years ago surely is a nuisance when the shoe is on the other foot.

[tristano's ghost]

Hey Jeffrey, looks like the GOP minority is on pace to nearly TRIPLE the previous record # of filibusters in a Congressional session.

Boy, and this with a president from their own party to potentially veto anything they REALLY don't like... why, they've even enacted a post-legislative filibuster on ethics reform that they voted for!

Sure, by all means, use the filibuster--use it three times as much as the previous minority did. And be held accountable for it come '08.

[Gordon B]

TG are you going to post the story in today's NYT about how Spitzer used the police to dig up dirt on his major political rival?

[Gary Sisco]

You mean this one?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/ny...hp&oref=slogin

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

Sure, by all means, use the filibuster--use it three times as much as the previous minority did. And be held accountable for it come '08.

You seem to have forgotten that this is how the left reclaimed power about a half a year ago. Aside from filibustering and doing everything in their power to block legislation from passing in Congress they did absolutely nothing.

[Scott Dolan]

The people were tired of the Republican led Congress and of the war in Iraq. The dems didn't so much win last year as the Republicans lost. But it had absolutely nothing to do with fillibustering.

[tristano's ghost]

Exactly, SD--we're in agreement on that one. Plus, Jeffrey, take a look at that chart again--we're about 1/3 of the way through a term of Congress, and the GOP has nearly equaled the entire amount of filibusters for the previous term. They are filibustering at three times the rate of the last D minority. They are even filibustering legislation that they voted for (ethics reform).

I don't agree w/Kos, who argued for doing away with the filibuster when the D's were in the minority. But I do think that voters need to be aware of how much filibusters were used--and whether or not they agree with said usage. Do you really think the majority of American voters are happy that the Republicans are filibustering nearly every attempt the D's make to start ending the Iraq War?

[Gary Sisco]

They are just pounding more nails in their own coffins, so I encourage it.

Arrogance meets its reward, eventually. I'm not a dim or even a fan but the repubs are going to take it on the chin bigtime next year and it will be well deserved. A great, loud, openhanded slap.

[tristano's ghost]

The AP sure has changed how they report a filibuster since the D's took over Congress.

[tristano's ghost]

You know what, though, it's not just the center-right bias of the press... it's also the spinelessness of the D's (don't even get me started, after the MoveOne business today):

The Filibuster: now painless and more convenient than ever!
by Kagro X

Senator Jim Webb's "dwell time" amendment failed yesterday by a vote of 56-44.

Yes, it failed by garnering 12 more yes votes than no votes.

By now, though, most of us are used to seeing this sort of thing. "Everyone knows" that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. Because that's how many votes it takes to invoke cloture, and cloture is how you break a filibuster. Right?

Sure.

But that ain't what's happening.

And it's why you're not seeing headlines today declaring that Senate Republicans cravenly filibustered legislation that would have required that troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan get recovery time at home equal to the time spent in combat.

Such a requirement, by the way, is already a tremendous compromise. The Pentagon brass usually requires twice as much rest as deployment. But Webb's compromise required only half that much rest. Still, Republicans said no. Our troops -- including our "one weekend a month" National Guardsmen -- must be required to spend more time in combat than out. So that the rest of us can all shop, watch TV, cut taxes, or take a "wide stance" if we feel like it.

So why aren't the papers reporting on the Republican intransigence in the Senate? Why aren't they telling everyone how they're ordering troops stressed to the breaking point back into combat while they busy themselves smoothing their pocket squares? Why aren't they publishing screaming headlines about the sheer gall of yesterday's Republican filibuster?

Because there was no Republican filibuster. That's why.

Instead, the reason the Webb amendment failed even though it got 56 votes was that Senators agreed by unanimous consent that the amendment should have to get 60 votes to pass, even without a filibuster.

But why would anyone agree to allow Republicans, who are already on pace to shatter all previous filibuster records, to stop an amendment this important and this sensible without even lifting a finger? And the question here is not just why anyone would allow it, but why everyone did. A single Senator could have put a stop to this simply by saying, "I object" when the unanimous consent request was made. Just one Senator.

Yet none did.

Not Harry Reid. Not Russ Feingold. Not Bernie Sanders.

Nobody.

And so the Webb amendment died quietly yesterday, allowing Republicans to enjoy all the obstructionist benefits of a filibuster, without having to stand up and tell Americans and their fighting men and women in the military exactly what they were doing. And not a moment was "wasted" on the "extended debate" that's supposed to make up a filibuster.

Everyone just politely agreed that 56-44 would be a losing vote for America's sons and daughters wearing the uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they did it on national television. And America yawned, hit the snooze button, and slept in.

In the coming days, the Congress will be dealing with the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2008. President Bush has threatened to veto almost every single one of them, which would leave the United States without any spending authority come October 1. That's ten days from now. The president says he's going to veto everything, and we have ten days to see if he's serious, decide what to do in case he is, and then figure out a way to get funding passed.

But hey, since those veto threats are pending, why not just agree to unanimous consent requests in both the House and the Senate that the appropriations bills will require a 2/3 vote to pass? Since they're going to be vetoed, why not just spare poor President Bush the trouble and the wear and tear on his veto crayon, and agree up front that if a bill doesn't pass with a veto-proof majority, it shouldn't be considered passed at all?

Because that's the logical extension of what happened yesterday. And the truth is, it makes no less sense. We don't know that Bush has the will to veto these bills any more than we knew that Republicans had the will to filibuster the Webb amendment. And I mean really filibuster. Not wait out a one-day cloture petition, beat it, and then break for lunch. But really stand on their feet day in and day out, live on C-SPAN2, and tell America they think our troops should spend more time in combat, and their families should just shut up about it.

Until recently, cloture votes were the easy way out of a filibuster. Forty-one Senators had only to make their protest last long enough to make it to the cloture vote, beat it, and then bask in their victory as the majority pulled the "defeated" legislation from the floor and slunk away. But believe it or not, Senate Democrats have found an easier way to do this, and begin slinking earlier.

Bravo.

[Scott Dolan]

People in this country absolutely blow me away. The media is hated by the right because they're too liberal. They are also hated by the left because they are too conservative.

I never realized how cutting edge it was to read the NYT, the one paper most despised by both sides.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

The left only claims it's too conservative because the right pointed out that the opposite was true. There were no complaints from the left in regards to the NYT prior to the internet and the rise in popularity in talk radio in the mid 90s, when another point of view finally started getting out.

Move on.org and the Daily KOS are the new NYT of the left, and even seem to control the left these days, as evidenced in the Times allowing a Move On add to be placed in it's pages for a fraction of the cost it charges everybody else, you know, the ad that talked about General Betray US? The one the left Congress refuses to condemn?

They know not to bite the hand that controls them.

[tristano's ghost]

Jeffrey, you must watch Fox News--you're about as uninformed as their typical viewers have proven to be when polled about basic facts. The Senate did condemn the MoveOn ad, by a 72-25 vote.. one of the most ridiculous moves I've ever seen. As Eli at MoveOn wrote:

No wonder public approval of Congress is tanking. They’re so out of touch with reality that they can find time to condemn an ad but they can't do what most Americans want -- vote to end this war.

Which is exactly right. There's a poll out today showing that more Republicans than Democrats approve of Congress. The D's are tanking because we--their base--are getting tired as hell of the kind of shenanigans that Harry Reid allows.

Say, Jeffrey, why did your ENTIRE party in the Senate vote against the Boxer amendment, which would've condemned political attacks on any military figures? (Another stupid idea, but it sure shows the Repubs' hypocrisy... where were all these jackasses when John Kerry, Wes Clark, and Max Cleland were getting smeared?) BTW, you going to condemn the Pentagon officials who coined the nickname "General Betray Us?"

Gotta say I've got some respect for old-school conservatives who actually wore a uniform, made a sacrifice, or got anywhere near war duty. The current generation of 101st Fighting Keyboarders....God help us if the future of this country in any way, shape or form continues to be determined by them. The last six years have sure given us a nice taste of the road to ruin. And if the D's don't start standing up and acting like they actually have the power that was voted to them, then America really is screwed.

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Wozniak

There were no complaints from the left in regards to the NYT prior to the internet and the rise in popularity in talk radio in the mid 90s, when another point of view finally started getting out.

Man, anywhere you go in this country you get bombarded with rightwing talk radio. Mainstream media has been tilting right for at least the past 15 years, and it's gone waaaaayyyyy right in the past six. I can't stand to watch CNN anymore... the AP routinely regurgitates GOP talking points... this stuff gets documented all the time by Internet sites, which frankly, Jeffrey, have become "the other point of view getting out" during the Bush years, and have been a tremendous boon to the left, given the right's dominance of other media forms. Pols and reporters get called on their b.s. much more quickly now--instantly, in many cases--and in most cases it seems to benefit the left. Liberal blogs are the closest counterforce we have against talk nazis like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. If it wasn't for Talking Points Memo, the Bush admin's attempt to turn the DoJ into another wing of the RNC would've gone totally unnoticed... since all the Cool Kids and the Gang of 500 Wankers in D.C. are more interested in being chummy, clubby, and just HATE it whenever anybody gets worked up over the nastiness that's gone on in this country for the past six years. You know, like those despicable anti-war freaks that make up a good 60-65% of the American voting population these days.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by TG

Mainstream media has been tilting right for at least the past 15 years, and it's gone waaaaayyyyy right in the past six.

What a monstrous heap of shit. Rightwing talk radio is not "mainstream". It's more prevalent because more rightwing folk listen to radio for politics than liberals do.

And once CBS/ABC/NBC News, or the NYT/WaPo/AP, local papers, Sunday talkies, etc... start using Rush Limbaugh/Michael Savage/Sean Hannity as authorities on any given story then you can come in here and post such fucking trash with a little bit of credibility.

Until then your story is just as fucking incorrect as Jeffreys.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

So what IS the correct story Mr. Dolan?

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

What a monstrous heap of shit. Rightwing talk radio is not "mainstream". It's more prevalent because more rightwing folk listen to radio for politics than liberals do.

And once CBS/ABC/NBC News, or the NYT/WaPo/AP, local papers, Sunday talkies, etc... start using Rush Limbaugh/Michael Savage/Sean Hannity as authorities on any given story then you can come in here and post such fucking trash with a little bit of credibility.

Until then your story is just as fucking incorrect as Jeffreys.

Good God, and your reading comprehension is just as bad as his. "Talk radio" and "mainstream media" were two different things entirely in the post I wrote. Need me to put 'em in my famous bold type so that you can tell the difference?

[Scott Dolan]

That's the best you could do?

How about addressing the second paragraph?

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Wozniak

So what IS the correct story Mr. Dolan?

The correct story is that outlets such as the NYT and WaPo, and all the others I mentioned in my previous post, are still liberal leaning just as they always have been. They are moderate, to be sure, but certainly not "tilting" right as TG asserts, and not leftwing looney as you believe.

The media HAS become rather lazy, I'll give you both that. Both of you are equally as lazy for not taking the time to do additional homework and look at stories from multiple viewpoints. If the media isn't presenting the story exactly the way you want them to, they're unpatriotic lefties. If they don't present it the way TG want them to, they're neo-con mouthpieces. You can hav your Limbaughs and Hannitys, and TG can have his Kos and Democracy Now! The rest of the media still lies between those two, though still slightly left of center.

[tristano's ghost]

That's "right of center."

You wanna get all worked up about your reading miscomprehension, that's your perogative.... I can't do nuttin' for ya, man. "Talk radio" and the Hannity/Limbaugh/Savage school is wingnutland. "The mainstream media" does indeed tilt right, but we'll just have to agree to disagree....the examples in this thread of how the AP has treated "filibusters" since the D's took over Congress are just more proof that I'm correct.

And you don't even know what I read. One paper I have read is the Wall Street Journal, but I'll stop doing that after Mr. Murdoch takes the helm. (Please, don't bother... life is too short to find out whether or not a 76-year-old rabid rightwinger who's turned every other media operation he's owned into a conservative mouthpiece/rag might, just MIGHT, act differently this time around.) The NY Times I've been down on since they decided to help George Bush justify attacking Iraq--though they've made faint attempts to atone for the journalistic crapola they printed in the runup to Georgie's Perpetual Sandbox o' Blood.

Still, if you're interested in a good "liberal" site, I can't say enough good things about Talking Points Memo. For the right--the somewhat-sane right, that is--Instapundit ain't too bad.

[Scott Dolan]

So the AP stories close the door, or at least strengthens, on your conclusion that the media tilts right. Wonderful.

And there was no lack of reading comprehension on my part. You were clearly drawing parallels there. Just like the Bush admin drawing parallels between September 11th and Iraq. No, neither of you actually SAID those things were directly related to each other. But, given their penchant, and your own, to subtley manipulate the way people comprehend what you say, it didn't take a rocket surgeon to read between the lines.

Either way, carry on. No, I don't know all of your sources, just the ones you post here. But I do question how diverse they really are and how much credence you give to each.