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The refresh of the graphics on CNBC looks pretty good. Is there a reason US stations fear white by-in-large, it seems to make things much more readable.
Also, it seems rather funny that all of the charts are now in a 2-D style verses the rotating charts we saw last time around. Anyone remember the outrage when the last graphics came out in 2005?
I say this lightly, because I grew to like the Green/Blue scheme, but I’m betting there are some people out there thinking “it only took then five years to fix it”
Either Chris Mathews has no sense of irony, or that’s one hell of a joke. He introduced a new commentary segment at the end of Hardball today called “Let Me Finish”. I’ll leave it to y’all with a rich sense of humor to see the irony..
Is it just me? I realize Chill-ay is the correct pronunciation for Chile, but come on people, we’ve been pronouncing it ‘Chili’ all our lives. What’s next, Pah-kee-stahn? Never mind..
^ Yeah Joe I saw that and thought the same thing.
I haven’t seen much FNC lately so I was surprised when watching Rachael Maddow tonight when she played a bunch of clips of FNC talent (mostly Dayside) referring to reconciliation as “the nuclear option”.
The fact is that “the nuclear option” was coined by Republicans as a way of getting rid of the filibuster and has nothing to do with reconciliation. Well aside from the idea that it has now become a Republican talking point to make reconciliation appear scary. It was really funny to see a bunch of FNC dayside talent use the same talking point without prompting. I wonder if they were told to always refer to reconciliation as “the nuclear option” by their bosses? I can’t imagine half a dozen anchors coming up with this characterization on their own. hmmm
Not quite right, fritz, but close. The “nuclear option” phrase pertained to the Republican threat to use a point of order to get around the Democratic senators’ filibuster of all of President Bush’s judicial vacancy appointments in 2005. Essentially, the threat to use the budget reconciliation process to get around Republican filibustering of the health care bill amounts to the same thing.
The idea to use reconciliation for health care legislation was first considered in 1993 by President Clinton in order to get his agenda passed. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) strongly objected because the process was designed for a much more limited scope. Using the reconciliation process for this health care legislation will violate the “Byrd Rule” and may require the President of the Senate to overrule the Senate parliamentarian.
Senator Grassley (R-IA) on Greta made a good point. If the Democrats want to pass health care legislation they don’t need the reconciliation process nor do they need any Republican support. They only need for the House to pass the already passed Senate-amended bill, and that can be accomplished with a simple majority vote.
Their real problem is among themselves, not Republicans.
Al; my understanding is that “the nuclear option” is one of two ways of changing the Senate filibuster rule.
One is to change the Senate rules during a session and requires 66 votes to pass. The second “the nuclear option” is a point of order to change the rule at the start of a session and requires only 51 votes. Until the Republicans started using it this month it has never associated with reconciliation. Even you must admit it is a Republican talking point and thus my question about supposedly non biased multiple FNC hosts using it in association with reconciliation is odd. To say it is the same thing is just wrong.
I agree with your history of it’s use except for its current usage.
The current plan is to use a mini-reconciliation to fix the Senate bill after it passes the House and should not be affected by the “Byrd Rule”.
Even so, as you say, the VPOTUS can override the Senate parliamentarian if he so wishes and that would be “the nuclear option” I guess.
Based upon the floor debate of Republicans and objections of Senate Democrats in 2005, I think the term “nuclear option” is meant to describe the destruction of Senate comity and its traditional role of tempering legislation meant to make abrupt, sweeping changes if such means are used to thwart the long-held parliamentarian tools of the minority.
Al, you are right that all Democrats have to do is pass the Senate bill in the House.
The problem is that the House Democrats won’t have the votes to do this until they work out a deal with the Senate Democrats for them to pass a fix of their bill (using “the nuclear option” reconciliation) that will make it palatable to House members.
There is a lack of trust, by House members, that the Senate will do this if the House passes the Senate bill first. They would prefer the Senate pass the fix before the House passes the bill.
Thus the debate.
In any case you don’t seem to find anything wrong with FNC dayside talent using Republican talking points. What happened to fare and balanced?
Al: I don’t get your comity comment. It was a Republican scare tactic. Trent Lott coined the phrase as a treat to Democrats blocking Bush judicial appointments with filibusters. The dispute was eventually worked out with the emergence of the group of fourteen.
I believe the Repubs picked up on FNC’s use of the “nuclear option” terminology which they’ve been using for months now. I also think it a relatively fair description of what’s going on. And I’d point out that their dayside talent have always paired that with the word “reconciliation” along with doing a pretty good job of explaining what that means.
As I understand it, never before in the history of the senate has judicial appointments been filibustered en bloc. The group of 14 restored some level of tradition to the body.
The use of filibuster to block passage of a single item on the agenda, as the Repubs are currently using it, is its intended purpose.
“Until the Republicans started using it this month it has never associated with reconciliation. Even you must admit it is a Republican talking point and thus my question about supposedly non biased multiple FNC hosts using it in association with reconciliation is odd.”
Ahem:
“Tonight: breaking news that could change everything in the White House battle for health care reform. Call it the nuclear option. After negotiating with the Republicans, conservative Democrats and, seemingly, themselves over parts of a plan, CNN has learned that the administration could be getting closer to a very big change, namely, crafting a health care bill, then trying to ram it through the Senate, even if it passes by only a single vote. ”
^ That’s interesting J$. I hope you didn’t have to send too much time locating that quote just to impress me. It looks like “the nuclear option” is going to become the next “death panel”; a scary sounding phase with no basis in fact that Republican/conservative pundits & politicians can use to reinforce the fears of its supporters. I’m not upset that they are doing it; just fascinated how malleable people are when it comes to using scary catch phrases.
You should be. It is foolishly short-sighted to only consider the issues of the present day. By design, the House of Representatives can pass anything it wants rapidly by simple majority vote. For that authority, its entire membership must face the voters every-other year.
But senators have terms three times as long and only 1/3 of them face the voters each election. This affords them a significant buffer from retribution for their actions and allows the Senate the freedom to go against what may be unsound wishes of the American majority. For that freedom, each individual senator is given extraordinary authority to slow down or even block legislation from passage… in essence this fosters comity and bipartisanship even when the entire government is under the control of a single party.
The carefully crafted rules of the US Senate were not designed to pass laws that the majority wants passed. They were designed to slow down that process so to limit the opportunities of unintended consequences, to protect against tyranny, and to uphold and defend the constitution.
If they can’t pass a bill following time-proven rules and traditions of the Senate then the bill is not worth passing. Kill the bill. Start over. Do it right.
It appears that Rep Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is about to lose his powerful chairmanship of the House Ways & Means Committee. The evidence against him is serious enough that he should lose that post, at least temporarily.
While I strongly disagree with him politically, it always bothers me a more than usual when a decorated veteran who served his country honourably in war gets into ethics problems.
March 1, 2010 at 8:41 am
Noticed this morning that CNBC refreshed their graphics package. To me it was long overdue.
March 1, 2010 at 8:42 am
Also would like to say that “Rick’s List” should be renamed “Dick’s List”.
March 1, 2010 at 9:43 am
The refresh of the graphics on CNBC looks pretty good. Is there a reason US stations fear white by-in-large, it seems to make things much more readable.
Also, it seems rather funny that all of the charts are now in a 2-D style verses the rotating charts we saw last time around. Anyone remember the outrage when the last graphics came out in 2005?
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnbc/complaints_about_new_cnbc_graphics_29666.asp
I say this lightly, because I grew to like the Green/Blue scheme, but I’m betting there are some people out there thinking “it only took then five years to fix it”
March 1, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Either Chris Mathews has no sense of irony, or that’s one hell of a joke. He introduced a new commentary segment at the end of Hardball today called “Let Me Finish”. I’ll leave it to y’all with a rich sense of humor to see the irony..
March 1, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Is it just me? I realize Chill-ay is the correct pronunciation for Chile, but come on people, we’ve been pronouncing it ‘Chili’ all our lives. What’s next, Pah-kee-stahn? Never mind..
March 1, 2010 at 6:41 pm
^ It’s just you.
March 1, 2010 at 6:42 pm
^ Yeah Joe I saw that and thought the same thing.
I haven’t seen much FNC lately so I was surprised when watching Rachael Maddow tonight when she played a bunch of clips of FNC talent (mostly Dayside) referring to reconciliation as “the nuclear option”.
The fact is that “the nuclear option” was coined by Republicans as a way of getting rid of the filibuster and has nothing to do with reconciliation. Well aside from the idea that it has now become a Republican talking point to make reconciliation appear scary. It was really funny to see a bunch of FNC dayside talent use the same talking point without prompting. I wonder if they were told to always refer to reconciliation as “the nuclear option” by their bosses? I can’t imagine half a dozen anchors coming up with this characterization on their own. hmmm
March 1, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Not quite right, fritz, but close. The “nuclear option” phrase pertained to the Republican threat to use a point of order to get around the Democratic senators’ filibuster of all of President Bush’s judicial vacancy appointments in 2005. Essentially, the threat to use the budget reconciliation process to get around Republican filibustering of the health care bill amounts to the same thing.
The idea to use reconciliation for health care legislation was first considered in 1993 by President Clinton in order to get his agenda passed. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) strongly objected because the process was designed for a much more limited scope. Using the reconciliation process for this health care legislation will violate the “Byrd Rule” and may require the President of the Senate to overrule the Senate parliamentarian.
March 1, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Senator Grassley (R-IA) on Greta made a good point. If the Democrats want to pass health care legislation they don’t need the reconciliation process nor do they need any Republican support. They only need for the House to pass the already passed Senate-amended bill, and that can be accomplished with a simple majority vote.
Their real problem is among themselves, not Republicans.
March 1, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Al; my understanding is that “the nuclear option” is one of two ways of changing the Senate filibuster rule.
One is to change the Senate rules during a session and requires 66 votes to pass. The second “the nuclear option” is a point of order to change the rule at the start of a session and requires only 51 votes. Until the Republicans started using it this month it has never associated with reconciliation. Even you must admit it is a Republican talking point and thus my question about supposedly non biased multiple FNC hosts using it in association with reconciliation is odd. To say it is the same thing is just wrong.
I agree with your history of it’s use except for its current usage.
The current plan is to use a mini-reconciliation to fix the Senate bill after it passes the House and should not be affected by the “Byrd Rule”.
Even so, as you say, the VPOTUS can override the Senate parliamentarian if he so wishes and that would be “the nuclear option” I guess.
March 1, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Based upon the floor debate of Republicans and objections of Senate Democrats in 2005, I think the term “nuclear option” is meant to describe the destruction of Senate comity and its traditional role of tempering legislation meant to make abrupt, sweeping changes if such means are used to thwart the long-held parliamentarian tools of the minority.
March 1, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Al, you are right that all Democrats have to do is pass the Senate bill in the House.
The problem is that the House Democrats won’t have the votes to do this until they work out a deal with the Senate Democrats for them to pass a fix of their bill (using “the nuclear option” reconciliation) that will make it palatable to House members.
There is a lack of trust, by House members, that the Senate will do this if the House passes the Senate bill first. They would prefer the Senate pass the fix before the House passes the bill.
Thus the debate.
In any case you don’t seem to find anything wrong with FNC dayside talent using Republican talking points. What happened to fare and balanced?
March 1, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Al: I don’t get your comity comment. It was a Republican scare tactic. Trent Lott coined the phrase as a treat to Democrats blocking Bush judicial appointments with filibusters. The dispute was eventually worked out with the emergence of the group of fourteen.
March 1, 2010 at 8:47 pm
-Talking points-
I believe the Repubs picked up on FNC’s use of the “nuclear option” terminology which they’ve been using for months now. I also think it a relatively fair description of what’s going on. And I’d point out that their dayside talent have always paired that with the word “reconciliation” along with doing a pretty good job of explaining what that means.
March 1, 2010 at 8:53 pm
-comity-
As I understand it, never before in the history of the senate has judicial appointments been filibustered en bloc. The group of 14 restored some level of tradition to the body.
The use of filibuster to block passage of a single item on the agenda, as the Repubs are currently using it, is its intended purpose.
March 2, 2010 at 6:55 am
“Until the Republicans started using it this month it has never associated with reconciliation. Even you must admit it is a Republican talking point and thus my question about supposedly non biased multiple FNC hosts using it in association with reconciliation is odd.”
Ahem:
“Tonight: breaking news that could change everything in the White House battle for health care reform. Call it the nuclear option. After negotiating with the Republicans, conservative Democrats and, seemingly, themselves over parts of a plan, CNN has learned that the administration could be getting closer to a very big change, namely, crafting a health care bill, then trying to ram it through the Senate, even if it passes by only a single vote. ”
Anderson Cooper, CNN, August 18 2009
March 2, 2010 at 7:55 am
^ That’s interesting J$. I hope you didn’t have to send too much time locating that quote just to impress me.
It looks like “the nuclear option” is going to become the next “death panel”; a scary sounding phase with no basis in fact that Republican/conservative pundits & politicians can use to reinforce the fears of its supporters. I’m not upset that they are doing it; just fascinated how malleable people are when it comes to using scary catch phrases.
March 2, 2010 at 8:16 am
Hey, I’m just happy that I DID impress you! That doesn’t happen every day.
March 2, 2010 at 1:15 pm
-I’m not upset that they are doing it-
You should be. It is foolishly short-sighted to only consider the issues of the present day. By design, the House of Representatives can pass anything it wants rapidly by simple majority vote. For that authority, its entire membership must face the voters every-other year.
But senators have terms three times as long and only 1/3 of them face the voters each election. This affords them a significant buffer from retribution for their actions and allows the Senate the freedom to go against what may be unsound wishes of the American majority. For that freedom, each individual senator is given extraordinary authority to slow down or even block legislation from passage… in essence this fosters comity and bipartisanship even when the entire government is under the control of a single party.
The carefully crafted rules of the US Senate were not designed to pass laws that the majority wants passed. They were designed to slow down that process so to limit the opportunities of unintended consequences, to protect against tyranny, and to uphold and defend the constitution.
If they can’t pass a bill following time-proven rules and traditions of the Senate then the bill is not worth passing. Kill the bill. Start over. Do it right.
March 2, 2010 at 5:30 pm
It appears that Rep Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is about to lose his powerful chairmanship of the House Ways & Means Committee. The evidence against him is serious enough that he should lose that post, at least temporarily.
While I strongly disagree with him politically, it always bothers me a more than usual when a decorated veteran who served his country honourably in war gets into ethics problems.
March 2, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I like Rangel. The age, accent and attitude remind me of my step-father. Shame he had to be a politician.