Face Off Over: Republicans Will Pull Trigger On “Nuclear Option”

Posted on Thursday, April 6, 2017 by Post Scripts

Posted by Tina

Minority Leader Chuck Schummer (Dem NY) played the usual disingenuous game: “We will sadly point to today as a turning point in the history of the Senate and the Supreme Court.”

But most of us remember how it went down when dems went nuclear. Must read…Debra Heine , PJ Media, nails those flaming hypocrites in the media and Democrat leadership:

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid triggered the nuclear option for most presidential appointees in 2013, Democrats were ecstatic.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes cheered the move as “an affirmative win for democracy,” while his colleague Rachel Maddow gushed: “This is a huge freaking deal. This is like 3-inch headlines. This is like people who don’t even care about politics really ought to care about this!”

On CNN, political analyst Paul Begala praised Reid’s maneuver, explaining it was necessary because Republicans had “so abused” the filibuster that Democrats couldn’t take it anymore. Ron Brownstein, also on CNN, hailed the decision as a forward-thinking move: “The idea of requiring a super majority for the president to appoint his nominees just is anachronistic.”

The only host who showed any hesitance was MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who admitted that he had been “intimidated” by Mitch McConnell’s threat (that they would regret it) because like “the traditionalists in the Senate, I was like afraid what happens when the other side has the power.”

He said he came to his senses when he realized that “of course they have got to do this, because in fact, when the Republicans have power, and the Republican presidency, the Democrats in the Senate would not be attempting to use the filibuster this way to that degree anyway….”

What a load of garbage.

We in fly over country hate the games. The lying. The deceit. You’d think they’d begin to get how much we loath them.

The next opportunity for us to do something about it comes in two years when we have another chance to throw the game playing b’tards out. Democrats in the Senate have 23 seats to defend, Republicans only eight, and the Republicans have a number of good people running. Five of the seats now held by Democrats are in red States with another eight that are in states where Republicans have won in recent elections.

Those of us intent on making America great again know how important the Supreme Court is in the battle. Neil Gorsuch will be our next SC justice, despite the political games. A few more seats may open up before all is said and done. I look forward to more nominees like Gorsuch and that would be a very good thing for America.

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6 Responses to Face Off Over: Republicans Will Pull Trigger On “Nuclear Option”

  1. Tina says:
    Thursday, April 6, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    Additional historical perspective. Josh Holmes at Politico, ” McConnell Is Finishing What Schumer Started – Fifteen years ago, Chuck Schumer picked a fight over judicial nominees. This week, Mitch McConnell is ending it for good”

    In a world of instant gratification that too often rewards boastful rhetoric over definitive accomplishments, Mitch McConnell stands out for his patience. The Senate majority leader expends political capital with ruthless efficiency, using it only when it can accomplish precisely what he intends. McConnell doesn’t start many fights; he finishes them.

    As the Senate moves toward confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, that is exactly what is happening: McConnell is ending a fight that a young senator named Chuck Schumer started nearly 15 years ago by rallying the first-ever partisan filibuster of a nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court: Miguel Estrada. Previously, the Senate’s “advise and consent” role was vigorously deployed with fierce partisan tensions but ultimately settled with simple up-or-down majority votes.

    Fresh off a drubbing in the 2002 midterm elections, Schumer and a Democratic minority sought to invigorate their liberal base by changing all of that. Leaked internal memos indicated that the Democratic opposition was predicated on the fact that if confirmed, this brilliant young Hispanic conservative would be catapulted onto the short list for a Supreme Court nomination. On that assumption, they were likely correct. At the time, Schumer understood that he could not base opposition to a judicial nominee on politics alone, so the stated reason for his opposition relied on the thinnest of gruel. Despite earning a “well-qualified” rating from the American Bar Association—the legal gold standard and seal of approval—Senate Democrats argued he wasn’t qualified.

    As a young legislative correspondent at the time, I staffed my then-boss, Minnesota freshman Republican Senator Norm Coleman, as he drew the much-despised overnight shift on the Senate floor to protest the Democratic blockade of Estrada. The hope was that after loud protests, moderate Democrats would defuse the escalation before judicial nominations became trench warfare. Alas, despite 55 senators voting to end the blockade, Democrats sustained the filibuster—as they would with Estrada on an additional six separate occasions. He was forced to withdraw his nomination, and a new age of partisan filibuster was born. Within two years, Schumer’s tactic would be deployed to torpedo nine more of President George W. Bush’s nominees.

    Predictably, the misuse of the filibuster led to an existential threat to the filibuster itself. To confirm President Bush’s embattled judicial nominees, then-Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened the “nuclear option,” that is, changing Senate rules to ban the use of the filibuster in certain instances. A bipartisan group of senators known as the “gang of 14” de-escalated the situation by voting to confirm most of the filibustered nominees, staving off such a fundamental change to Senate procedure.

    In politics, as in life, what comes around goes around. In 2009, Democrats regained control of the White House and the Senate, and as Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s judicial and executive-branch nominees, Democrats quickly grew frustrated with the new era of partisan warfare they had begun under Bush. In November 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid detonated a partial version of the nuclear option, eliminating the filibuster for appointments to the executive branch and lower courts, while exempting Supreme Court nominees from the new simple majority-vote standard.

    As a staffer for McConnell from 2007–2013, I watched him repeatedly warn colleagues on both sides of the aisle not to stray onto an irreversible path of escalation. He disappointed conservative activists when he chose not to filibuster the nominations of justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. He privately and publicly counseled Reid that invoking the nuclear option would bring profound unintended consequences to the Democratic interests that Reid sought to satisfy.

    And before that was the horrible treatment of Bork and Thomas. Democrats deserve this comeuppance!

    Reply
  2. J. Soden says:
    Friday, April 7, 2017 at 8:06 am

    Schumer conveniently ignores the rule changes instigated by Dirtier Harry Reid regarding filibusters. The Demwits were warned at the time that the rule changes could return and bite them in the tush – and it has.
    Schumer and the Demwits made their own bed, and now they can enjoy it.

    Never thought I’d be grateful for anything Dirtier Harry did!

    Reply
    • Dewster says:
      Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 4:31 am

      Bottom Line this is a Donor battle. These dirty politicians work for their donors no one else. Both sides aid a corporate coup and want their donors in power.

      Both garland and Gorsuck are corporate hacks who see the corporations as people and their money as speech.

      We the people can not afford to speak. … But we will fight money with money til we win. Small donations at a time and actually are forming small superpacs to fight with.

      Reply
  3. Dewster says:
    Friday, April 7, 2017 at 3:56 pm

    Bull

    Dictatorship by the Turtle McConnell

    After never abiding by the Constitution and giving Garland an up or down vote you cheer?

    All they had to do was vote NO on Garland.

    But forget the Constitution, Democracy or Keeping the Senate a Viable part of Gov. Just as long as you win at the peoples peril right?

    I did not like Garland (who the GOP requested once). But he should have had a vote at least. A No vote would have happened. So shame on you for the hypocrisy.

    Now when the table turns and the Dems have the Senate and WH you will scream bloody murder.

    Oh yea but the GOP has promised to fix elections so the Dems never win again.

    Gorsuck loves Citizens United and the Dark Money in elections has found it’s way into being protected by SCOTUS

    Hypocrisy all for Fake party Politics where both parties are aiding a corporate coup. The USA is never going to be a Free Country again.

    Reply
  4. Dewster says:
    Friday, April 7, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    Also MSNBC is a Pro War PR firm like FOX and CNN

    They make more money on war

    Reply

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