Hollywierd rarely does capture real life accurately. Congress really didn't care for that movie when it came out. We may even disagree about what in it was or wasn't accurate. While it does appear to be what the public thinks a filibuster is. 8)Scodiddly said:
Again opinions vary based on our personal perspective.
I am of the opinion that any friction in lawmaking is good. I have since read in the news that the president lobbied personally for this rule change to get his way with questionable appointments. Clearly a short term move that will make it harder for both parties to resist undesirable too-partisan appointments in the future. The local DC court that is getting some of those new judges, is the same court ruling over some of this administration's testing the limits of enumerated executive powers (like executive orders, selective administration of laws, recess appointments when not in recess, etc.) Loading up that reportedly underworked DC court with friendly judges could be useful, if the congress is deadlocked leaving extra-legislative action as his easiest remaining path to change the country like he promised. (Sorry if this sounds overly partisan and speculative about agendas. It seems to fit the public facts as we know them. So I offer it as one man's opinion of motivations behind the action. )
The use of a higher than simple majority threshold is not unique to the US legislature, and it makes sense to moderate one sided partisan policy making. Every president tests the limits of executive power, so Obama is not unique in that regard, but he seems to be pushing against those limits awfully hard IMO.
Of course opinions vary, and his peeps probably want even more change. I'm having trouble digesting the change we already have.
JR
PS: Just like the administration deserves an attaboy when they do good (like Afghan forces agreement), the easing of sanctions against Iran is not as clear cut a win for the west. Iran gets $Billions of dollars in new oil sales, in return for them promising to "pause", not abandon their nuclear enrichment program, for a few months ?? I heard Kerry say we needed to ease sanctions to get them to the negotiating table (cough). That is upside down ass-backwards from how sanctions actually work. The economic pain from sanctions is the only thing that brought them to the negotiating table now. Their national gas company was on the verge of collapse because of the sanctions. Now we are bailing out Iran's gas company, giving them precious western cash flow, getting almost zero in return. A pause is not diminishing their pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, just delaying it. This is a huge win for them, and a lose for the west who was finally seeing some concrete results from the economic sanctions.
The only good I see coming from this is lower world oil prices in the short term as billions of dollars of Iranian oil comes into the market legally, but the longer that Iran can resist abandoning their nuclear program the closer they come to a N Korea style membership into the atomic bomb club. That club already has too many members IMO. Did we learn nothing from N Korea?
=== Of course maybe I'm wrong.
