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Nuking It From Orbit
Nov. 21st, 2013 11:54 amToday, after years of threats, compromises, promises made and promises broken, Harry Reid dropped the bomb. The filibuster as we have known it for the last forty-some years, as it applies to presidential nominations, is no more.
What has ended is not the "Jefferson Smith in the well of the Senate" filibuster; that died back in the seventies. What has ended is a period of unprecedented obstruction, where nominees have been blocked not because of their own ideas, but because of the positions they were being appointed to (NLRB, CFPB) or because of the person nominating them.
Don't give me any "both sides do it" crap. In the history of the republic, 168 presidential nominees have been blocked via filibuster. 82 of those 168 - nearly half - were nominated by President Obama.
It's about goddamn time.
What has ended is not the "Jefferson Smith in the well of the Senate" filibuster; that died back in the seventies. What has ended is a period of unprecedented obstruction, where nominees have been blocked not because of their own ideas, but because of the positions they were being appointed to (NLRB, CFPB) or because of the person nominating them.
Don't give me any "both sides do it" crap. In the history of the republic, 168 presidential nominees have been blocked via filibuster. 82 of those 168 - nearly half - were nominated by President Obama.
It's about goddamn time.
