In the Crying Game, Fergus (Stephen Rea) goes from an IRA Terrorist to someone in love with a London nightclub singer. The spoiler occurs during the sex scene, Dil is not who she appears to be (played by Jaye Davidson).
Senator Reid forgot his background as a Terrorist in the Minority against President Bush fils nominees and is ready to blow up the Senate to get his way. There are some surprises Reid will not expect.
The Democrats, without any principles, are not standing on any today. Senator Reid of 2013, meet Senator Reid of 2005!
This war over Filibustering Judicial (and other) nominees did not begin overnight. It began, with a flirtation and a dance between Fergus and Dil. In the House, there was the "Bloody 8th" What happened in the "Bloody 8th?"
Read the history of the 99th Congress right in the Valley!
Or refresh your memories of the 80's with this article:
WASHINGTON — The House, with Democrats standing nearly rock solid, gave a bitterly contested Indiana seat to Democrat Frank McCloskey Wednesday, prompting Republicans to stalk out of the chamber in protest.
...
The vote to seat McCloskey was 236 to 190, with 10 Democrats joining the Republican minority to vote against the Democrat. Republican leader Robert Michel of Illinois immediately asked to adjourn the House.
...
A House-run recount, the first in 24 years, said incumbent McCloskey beat challenger McIntyre by four votes in November`s election -- 116,645 to 116,641 -- and the House voted 229-200 Tuesday to reject a call for a special election.
On
a 246-183 vote, the House spurned a Republican appeal Wednesday to
order an election task force to count 32 absentee ballots that the
Democratically controlled review panel said were illegal.
State officials twice said McIntyre was the winner in the election to represent the 8th House District in southern Indiana, but the closeness of the vote led the House to set up the task force that conducted the final recount.
While we TARDIS'd back to the 80's:
After that musical interlude, we are now in the Senate. Do you remember the name Robert Bork?
Can you say 'Borking?"
And then what happened to Justice Thomas?
And with Senator Kennedy's speech, new rules and lines were drawn. But we still did not see what was under Dil's dress yet. The Democrats had one more play before they showed their true colors:
After Justice Thomas, Republicans still played by the Comity rules in the Senate. The Democrats felt free to attack any or all nominees of a Republican Administration.
And as we take the slow path (due to a Weeping Angel, because we must weep at how the Democrats stand on no principles destroying people along the way), the Clinton Administration impeachment was not about impeaching, but History repeating (as it always does and will in the confines of the boundaries of DC)
During the President Bush fils Administration, Senator Reid and others blocked many Judicial nominations. Thus, the Filibuster wars began
The fact that Judge Janice Brown and Judge Miguel Estrada are not on the bench today is why the GOP upped the ante after 09 (and Senator Obama own actions stopping Judaical nominations)
There is a simple way to stop this crisis:State officials twice said McIntyre was the winner in the election to represent the 8th House District in southern Indiana, but the closeness of the vote led the House to set up the task force that conducted the final recount.
While we TARDIS'd back to the 80's:
After that musical interlude, we are now in the Senate. Do you remember the name Robert Bork?
Can you say 'Borking?"
And then what happened to Justice Thomas?
And with Senator Kennedy's speech, new rules and lines were drawn. But we still did not see what was under Dil's dress yet. The Democrats had one more play before they showed their true colors:
After Justice Thomas, Republicans still played by the Comity rules in the Senate. The Democrats felt free to attack any or all nominees of a Republican Administration.
And as we take the slow path (due to a Weeping Angel, because we must weep at how the Democrats stand on no principles destroying people along the way), the Clinton Administration impeachment was not about impeaching, but History repeating (as it always does and will in the confines of the boundaries of DC)
During the President Bush fils Administration, Senator Reid and others blocked many Judicial nominations. Thus, the Filibuster wars began
The fact that Judge Janice Brown and Judge Miguel Estrada are not on the bench today is why the GOP upped the ante after 09 (and Senator Obama own actions stopping Judaical nominations)
Re-nominate every Bush fils Judicial nominee and pass them through the floor of the Senate. No one will want to oppose President Obama's nominees then.....
If not, Senator Reid will suffer from the Crying Game.
My Question: Why do Democrats forget their own recent history?
Nice narrative, it sounds sas thought you might have needed a whole box of Kleenex as you were writing this my man.
ReplyDeleteI love how all Conservatives whine about Robert Bork. They fail to mention that the final confirmation vote was 58-42, with 6 Republicans joining Democrats and 2 Democrats joining 40 Republicans. How come I never hear a Conservative quote one of Reagan's most faithful Lieutenants, Senator John Warner (Republican Senator from Virginia), who not only voted against Bork's nomination but also said, ''I searched the record. I looked at this distinguished jurist, and I cannot find in him the record of compassion, of sensitivity and understanding of the pleas of the people to enable him to sit on the highest Court of the land.''. As far as Justice Thomas goes, I believe that history will find him to be one of the least qualified Justices ever.
But onto the fillibuster. I am not in favor of ending that; it is the ultimate weapon to protect the political minority in this country. The problem is that it has been over used by this Congress. First, let's take a look at Executive branch nominations. Here are some facts (from senate.gov):
Senators Lyndon Baines Johnson and Harry Reid have each served as Majority Leader for six years. During their tenures, then-Senator Johnson faced one filibuster while Senator Reid has faced 413.
Before President Obama took office, there had been a total of 20 filibusters on executive nominations in the entire history of the United States, from George Washington to George W. Bush. Since President Obama took office, there have been 16 filibusters. At this rate, there will be nearly 30 by the end of his second term.
Now, let us look at judicial nominations. AS of 7/11/2013, the overall total percentage of confirmations (District and Circuit courts) is George H.W. Bush 79%, Bill Clinton 82%, George W. Bush 94%, and Barack Obama 81%. Obama also has more vacancies on his watch than these two...part of that is his fault, bout our of 82 vacancies on the federal court level there are 61 without nominations but out of that 25 are in states with 2 Republican senators who have not put forth nominees.
Now, let's look at the time between committee approval to confirmation and we see that, on average, Obama's circuit court nominees took 138.5 days while George Bush's took only 35.5 days. The same holds true for district court nominees; Obama's nominees took, on average, 98.5 days while George Bush's took only 34.9. To see how bad this is, just compare the fact that it took George H.W. Bush's nominees only an average of 7.8 days.
Full disclosure, the above figures only take into account the time in the second part of the process, the time from committee to confirmation. This is the time where the nominations are on the Senate floor and thus are liable to be filibustered. When you factor in the first part of the process (from nomination to committee) the numbers are circuit court nominees of Obama waited 240.2 days, while Bush's waited 277 days. District courts, however, showed that Obama's nominees waited an averaged 221.8 days which was 42% longer than Bush's (source for these facts, is politifact.com).
The fact is, no tissues needed, is that this legislative body is the most obstructionist in our country's history.