What was this 'Byrd option' that the repukes were talking about yesterday?

[merwin]

I hadn't heard that one...

[meegbear]

1. Repugs are trying to rename the "nuclear option" to that

Mitch McConnell started this last weekend on Faux News Sunday.

[Richardo]

2. Hatch kept referring to it as "The Constitutional Option" on NPR yesterday

Hm. An asshat AND a liar. :eyes:

[DemsUnited]

7. Term "nuclear option" already defined in wikipedia.com

Too late for Repukes to try & rename it now :)

[Vickers]

3. That must be the "Abu Ghraib Option"

:shrug:

Or the "Halliburton Option" or "Fake Ranch Option" or...

etc.

[AntiCoup2K4]

4. It's the newest Repukelican distortion

Instead of calling it the "nuclear option" and truthfully saying that they are annihilating the last form of checks and balances in this government, instead they attach the name of Senator Byrd to it, claiming he did the same thing when he was Senate Majority leader.

Well, whatever Byrd did or did not do back then, he wasn't leading a Senate majority bent on enabling an unelected fascist dictator pretending to be President of the United States, and destroying the constitution.

That's a big difference.

[Inland]

6. So now they are personalizing the debate to Byrd. How charming.

nt

[Sal316]

5. From MediaMatters.org

Falsehood #9: Sen. Byrd's alterations to filibuster rules set precedent for "nuclear option"

Yet another faulty claim put forth by opponents of judicial filibusters is that past actions by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) have constituted a precedent for the so-called "nuclear option."

For example, columnist and CNN host Robert Novak claimed that a 1977 parliamentary maneuver by Byrd to break a post-cloture filibuster set such a precedent. A standard filibuster occurs when senators exercise their full rights under Senate Standing Rule XXII, which requires a three-fifths majority (60 votes) to invoke cloture, or cut off debate, on any matter pending before the Senate. But then-Senate Majority Leader Byrd's action in 1977 was a successful attempt to break a post-cloture filibuster; 60 senators had already voted for cloture, but two senators continued to extend debate by offering a series of amendments meant to manipulate a loophole in then-standing Senate rules. In order to end the post-cloture filibuster, Byrd invoked a provision of Rule XXII forbidding dilatory amendments. The precedent Byrd set was novel only because he interpreted Rule XXII to allow the chair of the Senate to rule the dilatory amendments out of order without first requiring a point of order from a senator on the floor.

By contrast, Republican senators are currently considering the "nuclear option" precisely because they lack the 60 votes to invoke cloture on the initial filibuster of the 10 judicial nominees.

Novak's claim is just one instance of opponents of judicial filibusters claiming that actions by Byrd set a precedent for the "nuclear option." The various claims originated in a fall 2004 article by lawyers Martin B. Gold and Dimple Gupta published in the conservative Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Gold is a former floor adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), and Gupta is a former employee of the Bush Justice Department. The progressive advocacy group People for the American Way rebutted the other arguments for a "nuclear precedent" put forth in Gold and Gupta's article in a February 22 report.

[merwin]

8. Ah, now i get it.

Thanks :-)

[grumpy old fart]

9. Don't ya just love the internet....All this information at our fingertips.

Any yet, enough morons still out there to "re-elect" the chimp....