Saturday, March 27, 2021

The Media’s All-In Campaign to Destroy the Filibuster

National Review 

"As we speak, there is no bill on the congressional docket that would provide Democrats an excuse to blow up the filibuster — or, as the media might euphemistically refer to it, “reforming” or “overhauling” the filibuster.
"One day, of course, there will be. Democrats, after all, used the filibuster hundreds of times in the past few years. But as far as we know, the party doesn’t have the votes for their election-integrity-killing bill. They don’t have the votes for a gun-restriction bill. Not any bill

"Yet, a casual follower of politics would surely be under the impression that there is a pressing battle unfolding because the media are incessantly covering the filibuster issue as a way to pressure holdout moderate Democrats to join the Left in the efforts to destroy the Senate.

"Take Manu Raju at CNN, whose main job it seems is to badger Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema with hypothetical questions about stripping Senate guardrails to allow Democrats to jam through their agenda with a narrow majority. Would you blow them up for a gun bill? Would you blow them up for a voting bill? Would you like it in a house? Would you like it with a mouse? Would you? Could you? In a car?

. . .  "In July 2020, before Democrats had even won their slim Senate majority, Raju was already haranguing Manchin and framing the filibuster — a “stall tactic” — in left-wing terms. To which Manchin emphatically responded, “That’s bullshit.” And then noted he had opposed a Democratic Party effort to kill the filibuster in 2013 and would do it again. Boy, that seems pretty clear to me." . . .More....

But now... Democrats, undereducated public, assault filibuster :

Biden bribes Manchin, bye-bye filibuster

Those legislative priorities — passing H.R. 1 to guarantee Republicans will never win another presidency or congressional majority by mandating nationwide cheating-enabling mail-in voting with no ID requirements and much more — depend on ending the filibuster.  Manchin's vote is required to do that.

Reason: Abolishing the Filibuster Is About Power, Not Anti-Racism   . . . "We should make no mistake. This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power-grab by the majority party," then-Sen. Joe Biden (D–Del.) said during a speech delivered on May 23, 2005, from the Senate floor.

"Calling it "the single most significant" vote he would cast in more than three decades as a member of the Senate, Biden admonished Republicans for trying to blow up the filibuster to get judicial nominees confirmed with a simple majority. "Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of guaranteeing individual rights and they also, as a consequence, would undermine the protections of the minority point of view in the heat of majority excess," he said.

"The times, they sure have changed.

"During a Thursday press conference, now-President Joe Biden indicated publicly what he has reportedly been saying behind closed doors for a while: that the Senate's filibuster rules should be changed—perhaps even abolished, allowing legislation to pass with a simple majority, though he continues to hedge on that point." . . .

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