What would have been the downside of ending the filibuster since Democrats RARELY used in minority?

[yurbud]

and even then, it usually took extreme public pressure to get them to do that, like opposing the appointment of Scalia clone Alito to the Supreme Court.

If they aren't going to use it when they are in the minority, and Republicans are going to abuse it endlessly, what is the advantage in keeping it?

[leftyohiolib]

1. the dems used it alot blocking bush's judicial appointments

[Enrique]

2. when they did use it, it was big

preventing social security from being privatized comes to mind.

[pnwmom]

3. This isn't the old, familiar center-right Republican party -- this is increasingly

a party led by the nut-cases on the far right.

If they had control of Congress and the Presidency, we might rue the day we ever got rid of the filibuster.

[Recursion]

4. We blocked several batshit crazy judicial appointments with the filibuster

As well as SS "reform".

[yurbud]

5. but not the worst legislation

[Mc Mike]

6. You're right.

And I strongly suspect that the repugs will end the filibuster for minority Dems the next time the repugs get the Senate majority, (which I hope is far from occurring any time soon).

It would be a hypocritical and outlandish power grab if they do so, after screaming and crying about the possibility of the Dems ending the filibuster power for minority repugs. But that's how the repugs operate. Any accusations they get really worked up about are projection on their part. When they try to commit election fraud, they scream accusations of election fraud at their opponents. When they behave as racists, they scream accusations of racism against their opponents. When they act treasonously, they scream accusations of treason against their opponents. So if they become a majority Senate party again, any attempt at filibustering will be met with screaming accusations that the Minority Dems are trying to de-rail and destroy the government. And the repugs will end the filibuster, they will commit the act they are currently characterizing as an 'evil treasonous power grab'. But it is only characterized like that by repugs if Dems dare to commit it against the repugs.

Mitch with his 420 filibusters of a Dem majority Senate is something we've never had occur when we were the minority party, and the Democrats (and America) could have benefitted from it. The repugs always like to stay one step ahead tactically, always do radical things that are either unprecedented or more extreme than have ever been done before.

This pretty much guarantees the repugs will do it to us, as soon as they get a chance. If they're calling it evil now, they will do it when they're in power. That's how they operate. Easy to predict.

[Ligyron]

9. ^^THIS^^

[yurbud]

10. yep. Like their spending like a drunken sailor on weekend pass and cutting taxes for the rich during

Bush, then bitching about taxes under Obama.

Every time Republicans talk about cutting the deficit or national debt, Democrats need to say, "Fine. Let's start with YOUR RICH DONORS paying back middle class taxpayers for the tax breaks, wars, trade deals, regulatory favors, and subsidies they got during the Bush years. After you fix that, we'll see if anything else needs to be cut."

[Mc Mike]

13. I guess a case could be made

for someone on our side saying 'Wouldn't it really suck if WE ended the filibuster, then quickly lost control of the Senate and had them use our elimination of it over and over, steamrolling opposition to their freak-ultra-right legislation, like they're doing in all of the state legislatures they control currently?' I'd feel terrible if that happened myself, but I just know deep in my bones they're going to eliminate it anyway after we forebear doing so.

As a compromise action, we could just reintroduce the talking filibuster again:

http://campaigns.dailykos.com/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=493


Thanks for the OP, yurbud. Hi to Ligy, and upon, if they're staying tuned here.

[yurbud]

16. a related question: when will demographics make it impossible for them to get a majority in Senate?

Somebody must have done the math.

[Mc Mike]

20. Somebody'd have to be way smarter than me, math wise, to crunch the numbers.for that timeframe

That day can't come soon enough, afaic, when the repugs' putting all their eggs in the 'rightwing rich old white christian guy' basket relegates them to permanent minority status, or the dustbin of history.

But we won 2 squeakers defeating Akin and Mourdock last time around. The staggered 6 year terms add difficulty to calculations. And it wasn't long ago that we had a supermajority and had just elected a Dem president. But our 60 evaporated quick, and for some reason our Byrds, Kennedys, and Lautenbergs die, when their Thurmonds, McCains linger.

[yurbud]

21. It evaporated because corporate Dems made the supermajority meaningless

by siding with the Republicans on the big issues.

[Mc Mike]

22. I believe in giving the voters a clear, distinct choice too,

instead of a repug-lite dem candidate running in an election against a repug. Higher up the chain of command of the Dem party, there are more people who value their positions and access to power over any attempt to mobilize and fire up the grassroots Dems with a clear choice. I think all progressive causes would fare better under a parlaimentary system, but we don't have one.

Our top political strategists are probably right, we probably couldn't run a Dem who lines up with Warren or Sanders as a Dem in Missouri or N. Dakota, and hope to win. And we are better off having McCaskill over Akin. Gab Giffords was an NRA member, which I guess is what it took to get the first Jewish woman into Congress in AZ. But it's a shame that our Dems from conservative areas don't do what the repugs do, get elected as 'moderates', then push the most partisan governing moves through. Probably because repugs own corporate media, which regularly ignores the repugs' radical moves, but would jump all over a Dem who did anything like the repugs do.

Maybe it would help if progressive Dems in a conservative blue area or red areas voted with their contributions, back the Dems in other areas who are more in line with their progressive values. I suspect a lot of Dems in conservative areas max out their contributions to the blue dog or third way DLC candidate in their region, in order to access their region's political power pyramid. For me, it would have been a nightmare if Tom Smith beat Bob Casey for my state's Senate seat, but I broke up my Senate contributions to back more progressive Senate candidates in other parts of the country.

Re the evaporation of the s.m., I think it disappeared too fast to be the result of rank-and-file progressive dems' disgust about 'centrist' compromises, because it should have taken a longer lag time between disgruntlement and resulting backlash. (Not being argumentative with you, yb, just my opinion.) I don't believe that blue MA put a repug like Brown in over Coakley one year after swamping the repugs in Obama v. McCain, after decades of putting Ted K. into that seat. Electronic voting fraud. Same for the 'centrist' losses of Daschle and Cleland in '02. A ton of irregularities and anomalies accompanied the repug victories. But I don't think they can steal it every time, just if our side is on the defensive and the base is not fired up. They can't steal a 30 point victory from us. And the best way to assure a 30 point victory is giving the people a clear progressive choice, instead of someone who says the repugs 'make some good points'. So I agree with you about not siding with the repugs on the big issues, though it is a long winded and circuitous agreement.

[yurbud]

23. the disgust was not necessarily at the compromises, but when they came in the process

compromise should come at the END not before you start negotiating.

Too often Democrats did the equivalent of looking at the sticker price of a car, offering that, then acting bewilder when the salesman kept upping the price.

If Democrats started with clear proposals instead of pre-compromised, Rube Goldberg contraptions, they could build public support and pressure on Republicans and conservative Democrats.

[Mc Mike]

34. They definitely aim too low.

Constantly self-censor when conceiving their demands for our side.

You're right, they should start as progressive as possible, not concede half the ground before negotiations start.

[yurbud]

42. as Obama demonstrated again today by making a mostly conservative tax proposal that conservatives

immediately rejected.

If you know that's going to be the outcome anyway, you might as well propose something clearly progressive that the public can easily understand and get mad a the GOP for blocking.

[Mc Mike]

44. I recall the recent threat to 'go Bulworth'.

It would be nice to see it happen with specific policy pronouncements, exec branch interpretations, 'in your face' legal system pushbacks against the state repugs' nullification efforts on civil rights and womens' rights. All leading up to the '14 elections.

[yurbud]

45. which ironically would IMPROVE Dems chances in 14 more than the "Business Party WITHOUT Nuts" tack

[Mc Mike]

46. If people see progress, they'll see a clear choice.

[Mc Mike]

14. And by the way,

it was funny how none of these newly 'fiscally responsible' repugs called for Cheney's scalp when he said 'Reagan proved deficits don't matter', as his administration single-handedly spent more than every other administration in US history, combined.

I'd suggest impounding Halliburton KBR's bank accounts, and applying them to the national debt, to help the repug congress with their newly found worries about the debt. That might do for a start.

[yurbud]

25. good idea

[yurbud]

26. It wouldn't take much of our military to occupy the Cayman Islands, Seychelles, or wherever the

hell else they hide their money these days.

Actually, it wouldn't even take ANY troops, just a handful of clever hackers to recoup what was taken from us.

[Mc Mike]

32. The hacker idea is excellent. Give the gang over at NSA something positive to do

for national security.

Romney logs on to visit his accounts, gets a video game style 'game over' message, and the funds are diverted to keep Philly and Chicago schools open.

[yurbud]

37. just as there have been whistleblowers and leakers who have gone off the reservation...

I hope someone in the government with the access and skills used them to do something like that.

[Mc Mike]

38. Redford's crew did something like that, at the end of the movie 'Sneakers', I remember.

[yurbud]

39. could you elaborate?

[Mc Mike]

40. Good movie, you should see it. *Spoiler Alert*

Robert Redford's private cyber-security firm (played by Sidney Poitier, Dan Ayckroyd, Mary McDonnell, River Pheonix, Dave Strathairn), recovers a universal de-cryption machine from the evil Ben Kingsley's SMERSH-like agency. They convince the NSA (James Earl Jones leading) that it never worked. At the end of the story, there's a news broadcast that the RNC is bankrupt, and there have been all these anonymous large donations to Civil Rights, Social Justice, and Environmental organizations.

The decryption device was kind of a deus ex machina, so the movie has no practical advice on the mechanics of such an act, it just says if the power to do so existed, there are some obvious targets to have their accounts 'zeroed out' (as Gingrich would say), and obvious places the funds should flow to.

[yurbud]

41. that's the kind of thing I thought of--give it all to charities and even fake an email that

says, "Since we don't believe in paying taxes, we have decided to donate ALL our money to charitable organizations that will do the job better than any government could.

We are not concerned about being penniless. We are hard-working, resourceful people who don't have to depend on wealth that may have been accumulated by our ancestors generations ago.

We welcome the challenge to make our own mark in the world and trust that the market will weed out those among us who have no real talent or fortitude."

[Mc Mike]

43. I'm sure the cream will rise to the top,

Given the innate talent and work ethic regularly shown by the candidates they choose to represent them, like l'il bush and Romney.

When they scream 'that e-mail was a fake! We were robbed!' we can just say 'They're just being modest, they don't want to take credit for their great gesture. Here, give them this application for food stamps.'

[uponit7771]

11. +1

[LuvNewcastle]

15. The filibuster is toast. Democrats might as well end it now while

they can get some things accomplished. I don't think they want to get anything done, though. They like having the filibuster as an excuse when people ask them why they aren't getting anything done.

[warrprayer]

7. it's 11 dimensional chess n/t

[JVS]

8. It would seem more logical to call for better leadership than for disarming the inept leader.

[bemildred]

12. There is no downside. nt

[99Forever]

17. The downside?

That would take away the figleaf they use as an excuse to accomplish nothing of value and blame it on the "evil" Republicans.

In the meantime they are all laughing at how gullible the American proles are.

[Marr]

18. They won't end it because it makes a convenient excuse for passing corporate legislation.

Remember when the Democrats first took back Congress, during Bush's administration? There was this window there where they had to make the most ridiculous arguments for why they couldn't do anything, and the leadership would engage in procedural maneuvers that amounted to advancing conservative bills over more left-leaning versions. It was very revealing.

[TheKentuckian]

19. "Leadership" will need to come up with new excuses for corporate taint licking, selling us out,

and passing shitty TeaPubliKlan bills from a few years ago.

[Cleita]

24. Good point. None that I can see.

Maybe we should launch a letter writing campaign to Harry Reid stating just that.

[librechik]

29. Reid knows. He's in on the joke.

he's using it for cover too.

[Cleita]

30. Yes, but isn't it time we let him

know we stopped laughing years ago? We also have stopped crying and are getting really angry. He needs to know. Bernie Sanders has said that when enough of us demand change on an issue, they do listen because they are afraid of a huge up swelling of dissent.

[librechik]

35. yeah--but it's not like they don't know that, too. And they just aren't afraid of it.

Most of them are in safe districts and entrenched, and they also hold hostage the means to break the deadlocks and obstruction. While in office they change rules and appoint cronies, so it becomes more and more difficult for democratic change to happen.

There's a few who are sincerely fighting the system, but not enough to make a difference.

I wish I were wrong. I was always so proud of our democracy while growing up. Now, truly, it is just a memory.

[Cleita]

36. I can't disagree.

I grew up with dual citizenship, USA and Chile. When I came of age, my American father told me I would have to choose which country I wanted to be a citizen of before I turned 21. I chose the USA for those reasons you outlined and the fact that American women had many more legal rights than Chilean women did at that time even in the fifties.

Frankly, if I had chosen Chile, I wouldn't have had to work as hard and would have had a close family life. I did not choose what our country is turning into today domestically.

[Xyzse]

27. Again, I do not advocate for the ending of the Filibuster

All I am saying is that if they threaten to filibuster, they actually go up and filibuster.

A threat of a filibuster should not gum up the process. Let them stand up for what they believe in, if they actually believe the crap they spew.

[ZombieHorde]

28. I sometimes suspect the Dems don't want to get rid of the fillibuster

because it provides them an excuse, but I am probably just being overly cynical when I suspect that.

[Cleita]

31. You are not. There is plenty to be cynical about being they really are both playing

on the same team.

[madokie]

33. It would be like shooting the republicons up with steroids

once they got into the majority again. They'd really push the envelope of passing what their corporate masters want.

At the rate they're going with all the hate towards the 99 percent of us the fillibuster might be our bestest friend in the near future when they do regain the majority