Winger caller on CSPAN gets schooled by Dem lawyer on fillibusters

[BurtWorm]

The poor schmuck, misled by his puppet masters at Fox and Winger Webland, thought he was going to land a punch when he asked CSPAN's guest, a former Democratic counsel for the Senate Judiciary committee, "How many nominees did the Republicans fillibuster in the Clinton years." "How many were prevented from getting a straight up or down vote? Somewhere between 60 and 70," the lawyer replied. Taken aback, the caller tried again. "They were fillibustered?" he asked. "Worse than that!" replied the lawyer. "They weren't even allowed a vote in the committee."

I have a feeling that the winger media are not informing their puppets of this fact, or the fact that Orin Hatch did away with the Democratic practice of the "blue slip," which allowed Senators from states affected by the nominations to put an indefinite hold on a nomination they didn't like.

And by the way, the Democrats are not doing a very good job of keeping those facts in the forefront of the discussion either. If they had been, the Republicans might not be so flagrant about their hypocrisy.

[ck4829]

1. Excellent. Recommended.

[BeeBee]

2. I've been wondering the same thing..

Why don't the Dems pound this point home?

[gratuitous]

3. I've seen Democrats using these very points in the transcripts

But for some reason, there never seems to be any footage of a Democrat actually saying these things, and the talking chuckleheads seem content to stare off into the air when the Republicans peddle their flagrant lies, even though the chuckleheads know these facts.

It's a puzzlement why this information doesn't seem to get aired regularly on the networks or the cable channels. I'll have to cogitate on this for a while. Hmmm, think, think.

[smoogatz]

6. Because saying it ain't so means that Frist et al are liars

And no journalist wants to go down that road in this climate. It wouldn't be fair or balanced, after all. Unless the person caught in an untruth is a Democrat.

[Pacifist Patriot]

15. Exactly!

It's maddening. They are saying it, but they might as well be talking into an empty room.

[BurtWorm]

16. It's the "non-bias" bias at play.

The media think that bad arguments deserve equal play with good arguments, and that they're not allowed to point out the difference between them, because that would be a bias in favor of "intelligence" and "critical thinking."

[hvn_nbr_2]

20. Exactly, and not just about the filibuster

About the nominees too. How many people know a single thing about a single one of these candidates if they didn't dig up the information themselves on the internet. All the media will tell us about any of them are "They're extremist." "No, they're mainstream." "Are too." "Are not." Absolutely no facts are allowed in media.

[BurtWorm]

21. Once upon a time, a journalist thought it was his or her responsibility

to find out why someone calls someone an extremist. We have no picture of Janice Brown except as a slightly smiling, benign looking African-American. Why are Democrats calling this nice-looking woman unfit for the court? Isn't that an interesting question? But these dolts in the media only know how to cover the game, the process, the competition. They are incapable of getting any deeper than that.

[AuntiBush]

23. They have been, repeatedly on the Senate floor and

what few times C-Span gives them, air-wise.

Right now, C-Span and a hint from CNN are the only ones giving the Dem's any true dignifiablly, and deservably sincere air-time.

[Coexist]

4. thanks for the good news!

[Hamlette]

5. were the "blue slips" a "Democratic practice"?

I admit to not having heard of it prior to Hatch using it during the Clinton years and being furious when he stopped it as soon as Bush was elected. Hypocrite.

What the GOP is saying in this debate is that judicial nominees should get to the floor of the Senate only when the majority of Senators are from the same party as the prez. Listen carefully. When someone mentions the 62 Clinton appontees who didn't get to the committee they say "but the majority in the Senate didn't want them". (The GOP was in charge of the Senate then.)

I would LOVE for this to become a battle over the electoral college and the Senate being biased in favor of small states. I think we should start a movement to divide up some blue states. Make Manhatten 3 states, not one city. Upper, Midtown and Lower. Maybe even 6 states for west and east sides too. That way we'd get more Senators.

I'd also love to hear Dems making the argument that the 45 Dem Senators actually represent more americans than the 55 GOP Senators represent. How fair is that? Isn't that really minority rule?

[BurtWorm]

9. The Dems do represent a majority.

The most frightening thing is that the Republicans, like the Khmer Rouges in Cambodia in the 1970s, are a minority party with near absolute control. How did our democracy get us into this mess?!

[lastliberalintexas]

17. No, just a Senatorial practice

used by both parties over the years- though the republicans have been far more aggressive about it. While I don't like it, I really don't have a problem with it if it is applied uniformly.

For those who don't know exactly, the blue slip allowed a Senator from the same state as a nominee to keep the nominee from ever coming to a vote. If I remember correctly, Phil Gramm and Jesse Helms were very fond of the procedure.

[BurtWorm]

18. Indeed they were.

Look up "obstructionist" in the dictionary and this is what you'll find to illustrate it:

[hvn_nbr_2]

19. No, it wasn't a Democratic practice.

It was a longstanding Senate practice, and when the Dems controlled the Senate, they allowed Republicans to "blue slip" nominees from their states.

[central scrutinizer]

7. even the cat killer got schooled

see this thread and prepare to LOL

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3681087

[BurtWorm]

8. Dana Millbank wrote a column about that

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/18/AR2005051802069.html

The Killer Instinct

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, May 19, 2005; Page A14

The Senate chaplain started yesterday's judicial showdown with a prayer for "patience and peace" and "unity where there is division." Thirty-three minutes later, the majority leader just about accused the minority of attempted murder.

The Republican leader, Bill Frist (Tenn.), was asked why he, the head of the anti-filibuster movement, had voted to uphold the filibuster of a judge in 2000. Frist at first stammered -- "Mr. President, the, in response, the Paez nomination, we'll come back and discuss it" -- and then settled on an answer: "It's not the cloture votes, per se," he said, using the term for filibuster-breaking votes. "It's the partisan leadership-led use of cloture to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees."


The Democratic whip, Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), later walked into the chamber with a transcript of Frist's accusation. "Those words should be taken from the record," he demanded. They were not....

[spooky3]

10. Reid said it again--vote up the story at Yahoo.com.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1793796

[pbartch]

11. that liar TRENT LOTT is speaking now

funny......they blame Dems for keeping nominations from the floor. They don't mention that they kept 70 nominations in committee and didn't even let them get a up and down vote.

[CottonBear]

12. I heard that caller!

The guest rocked. I can't remember his name. He's a DC lawyer and was a Democratic counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1981-1989. He wrote a book about the Bork SC nomination.

He was very calm and plain spoken. He took down RW caller after RW caller with the TRUTH!

:applause:

[BurtWorm]

13. G-something. (I can't remember the name either.)

And he was great--calm, steady, reasoned. Guys like that make me proud to be a Democrat.

[Pacifist Patriot]

14. Quite a few democrats have said it over and over again...

including Harry Reid most recently. They've been saying it until they are blue in the face, but if Republicans won't listen and the media won't expose it....:shrug:

[Griffy]

22. LINK.. video?? time and day at least.. thanks !

sounds great.. they are learning.. and thats why bush numbers continue to plummet!

[BurtWorm]

24. It was Thursday morning

sometime around 8:30 to 9:00 a.m. ET on Washington Journal.