We recently discussed how Democratic members and staffers are now repeating the same phrase that they will push through immigration reform, spending bills, and other items “by any means necessary.” That includes packing the Supreme Court and sacking nonpartisan staffers like the Senate Parliamentarian. President Joe Biden has now joined the movement by casting aside prior principles that he long defended to achieve his own agenda. He told ABC anchor David Muir that he is reversing his position on the filibuster and would support its curtailment in order to federalize election rules. It is part of what the President now says is a strategy to muscle through the legislation by “whatever it takes.”
President Biden has never been a prisoner to principle. As discussed in an earlier column, he has spent his career as a largely opportunistic actor who tends to go where the polls rather than principles take him. However, one principle that he has not been willing to jettison (until now) was the filibuster.
As a senator, Biden was vehement in his opposition to those who wanted to curtail the filibuster. He called such efforts “disastrous” and proclaimed: “God save us from that fate … [it] would change this fundamental understanding and unbroken practice of what the Senate is all about.” His colleagues, including then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and now-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), gave equally full-throated endorsements of the rule being denounced today as a thoroughly racist relic.
Despite remaining silent for much of the year as groups denounced the filibuster as a “racist relic,” Biden finally summoned up the courage to again reaffirm his opposition to curtailing the filibuster rule. Rather than risk the ire of his party, he explained it as a purely strategic decision while stating that he still supports the filibuster.
With the Build Back Better legislation blocked in the Senate, pressure was building on Biden to drop his opposition. Democrats are particularly adamant that they need to take over election rules and force states to adopt new rules before the midterm elections. To make the case, many in the media have been hyping the argument that the rule is a “relic of the Jim Crow period.” Putting aside the factual and historical errors, Biden was facing a test between principle and politics. His choice was, if nothing else, predictable.
In pushing to preempt state election laws, Muir asked Biden “are you prepared to support fundamental changes in the Senate rules to get this done?” Biden responded “yes.” Muir then asked “what does that mean?” Biden responded “that means whatever it takes.”
There is nothing more chilling than a president declaring that he will do “whatever it takes” to achieve his goals, including changing what he called the “fundamental understanding and unbroken practice of what the Senate is all about.”
While President Biden may have found his natural resting place in a conflict between politics and principle, the move against the filibuster rule will only aggravate our deep divisions. The Democrats would force through a sweeping federalization of state election laws for the first time in our history. It would federally preempt the laws in dozens of states and declare that Congress, not state legislatures, will now dictate how people vote in states from New Hampshire to Idaho to Oregon.
I previously wrote why the filibuster rule was designed for times like this:
Pushing through such controversial measures with bare majorities and on straight party lines will only deepen the divisions and increase the rage in this country. So this is precisely a time when the filibuster can play a positive role, by forcing legislation to pass with a modest level of bipartisan support. It requires consensus and compromise at a time of growing, violent division.
…
The filibuster has gone through historic controversies through the centuries, from opposing Caesar to opposing civil rights. But as a consensus-forcing rule, its time may have arrived, to the chagrin of many.
Biden ran as a unifier but has governed as a divider. He makes Trump look like the unifier.
This is all beginning to seem a lot like France in 1792 or Russia in 1918.
What has Biden done that makes him a divider? He tried to get Republican support for his bills. He does not spend every day making school yard level insults at his political and social opponents. Biden is bland and normal.
Today’s Sammy used to post occasionally as anonymous with the same icon but lacking the name. He posts under a multiplicity of anonymous characters but is well known to the blog. He can’t stay away from posting under one anonymous or the other or even under a fictitious name. He is well known to the entire blog mostly preferring completely anonymity. I don’t think many do not know who he is.
Biden never tried to get Republican support unless you think threatening is part of the process.
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/22/miami-dade-police-officer-will-not-be-charged-over-slapping-woman-at-airport/comment-page-1/#comment-2146059
Sam ; Lord fragile biden has done nothing but divisive politics. He has backed all manner of unconstitutional mandates to coerce people to take this toxic blue jab , and still is. He has single handedly destroyed the faith of many servicemen in our armed forces with witch hunts and phony exemptions to the toxic jabs. The insertion of CRT idiocy down the throats of our troops…insanity and intended to divide and create a “force” which will obey unthinkingly illegal orders.
Biden has ignored the transport/export issues – seemingly by design. His destruction of America’s oil /energy independence – flat out insanity. His admin’s absolute stupidity of allowing inflation to skyrocket…geez you would almost have to conclude his inept workings have to be deliberate sabotage to America. This umteenth wave of class division taxation. Allowing agencies like CDC , NIH , IRS , CIA , OSHA to run amok doing what they please onto the citizenry. A creeping fascist cancer is exactly what the lkeft is setting up. The things his admnin says and does are right out of George Orwell’s writings.
Agreed that Biden is bland , but normal he is not. With a drug addled son on the take for foreign cash for influence and biden’s 10% , to his horrible raising of his daughter too if you had bothered reading any of Ashley’s diary. To cap it off he married the baby sitter of his children after his wife died…that is beyond creepy and reprehensible. Biden’s long history of segregationist friends ands associates . His absolute plagiarism every time he thought nobody was looking…or likely does not even care when he is caught doing such . As noted he is an opportunist and the chosen puppet for the three letter alphabet agencies that installed and direct him.
With all these gargantuan authoritarian flaws and predilections coupled with his obvious mental decline he is a dangerous angry puppet. We should all be worried what this manipulated manipulator does…and can do.
Oh and yes I forgot to mention his deliberate flood of America with hordes of illegals…even attempted a cash grab of $450k for certain illegals. The insanity of this wave of wholesale garbage immigration is designed to create chaos and division. While screaming at the public to take the jab they willingly ignore the tropical diseases and covid the unwashed illegals bring with them. Everything this current admin has done is to distract , divide and conquer the normalcy this land once had. Nothing good is coming from these unconstitutional edicts upon our freedoms and the constitution. This by any means necessary admin of apparatchiks does no nor ever had the well being of our people or the constitution in their doings.
Bust Philadelphia. When it was the Capitol. Now the Capital is DC. Call it the DC Buster.
How else are people supposed to get their fair share of something if that something is not divided 🙂
If a coup is what the people what, then what about “the will of the people”? What about “the people have spoken”?
Yup. Hence the need to get rid of the filibuster and restore meaningful elections to this country.
Manchin may have no other choice but to switch parties–or betray the country by voting for a constitutional crisis.
Our national windvane, “the Big Guy,” is once, again, appeasing the radical left–hence, Manchin’s growing dilemma. If Manchin goes along with weakening the filibuster and opening the floodgates of radical legislation, the next question is, how will the various states respond to what they will earnestly believe is a real constitutional crisis? Will Milley and the Pentagon intervene by bombing and shooting anybody the Democrats call “insurrectionists?”
A party with barely a majority in Congress and collapsing polls wants to make one last stab at a one-party dictatorship, enforced by a packed Court and an increasingly subversive military.
National unity may be wavering on one heartbeat in the Senate. Stay tuned.
Good analysis, Diogenes! It’s all very frightening!
One party dictatorship by restoring free and fair elections? Kinda odd way to doing that. They should try something democratic like storming the capital and pressuring the VP to ignore election results.
Uncle Joe has a gift. 500 million China virus @ home free test kits. Be carful when filling out the shipping information. You might wind up like Santa Clause. Being arrested & interrogated.
Even if Trump never existed, they would still blame Trump.
When Bush was President, what did the signs say?
Kill Bush was the left’s slogan. One can point to other left-wing opposition to any leadership that doesn’t give the left complete dictatorial power.
Whatever it takes? Why not burst into the Capitol with some Antifa and BLM members and coerce the Republicans into voting the right way?
Liberal demons like to shock with their anti-Christian expressions of iconoclasm, but don’t want to be shocked and offended by politically incorrect expressions.
They can dish out the offense, but they can’t take it. Preposterous creatures, they are.
Joe Biden has taken a wrecking ball to our country. His reversal of the policies of the previous administration has resulted in the loss of energy independence and chaos at the southern border. The persistence of the Democrats in pushing the “progressive” agenda by doing “whatever it takes” illustrates that the “progressive” agenda is about increasing power rather than designing policies and programs that would make sense for the American people. Joe Manchin clearly understands that. Unlike Chuck Schumer, he is actually representing his constituency. Chuck Schumer is up for re-election next year. He does not deserve another term.
Right on, Chuck doesn’t deserve another term. He deserves a sentence if he pushes this any further.
The illegal border diktats and hordes of illegals his admin coddle too are meant to be divisive and distracting . An admin of smoke , mirrors and symbolism over substance.
“Whatever it Takes” Politics: Biden Reverses His Earlier Support of the Filibuster Rule
Jonathan Turley wrote, “President Biden has never been a prisoner to principle. As discussed in an earlier column, he has spent his career as a largely opportunistic actor who tends to go where the polls rather than principles take him.”
Big surprise.
I said during the presidential campaign in 2020 that Joe Biden had no perceived principles of his own and was a sock puppet for extreme “progressives”, it’s either that or he was a snake-in-the-grass “progressive” with a false moderate facade and to-date my overall perception is that he has proven that both of those cases are true; he’s a 21st century “progressive” and a sock puppet of extreme “progressives”. These extremists don’t give a dang about you or I or anyone else, they only care about getting more political power, infringing on the rights of those they oppose, and ramming their totalitarian ideology down everyone throats.
Note: The 21st century’s progressives are anything but “progressive”. Using the word “progressive” to describe these 21st century Democratic Party extremists is an oxymoron; the ideology, policies and actions of “progressives” are actually regressive to the point of being culturally and socially destructive. These ignorant 21st century “progressives” and their army of intimidating social justice warrior “brown shirts” have literally become the totalitarian evil they have professed to be against for years.
Progressivism, when it first emerged in the early 20th century, included a very powerful strain promoting the authority of “experts” acting through the administrative state. That is what we now see in how today’s progressives approach climate change, health policy and the “dismantling” of “systemic racism.” They consistently turn to executive action through “experts” who see the truth that the voters, through their elected representatives, are too benighted to grasp.
Indeed! It takes us back to the philosopher kings in Plato’s Republic. Do we really believe that these folks know what’s best for the rest of us?
Progress is an [unqualified] monotonic process.
The House of Representatives could use a Filibuster Rule of their own…..and have a super- majority vote hurdle somewhere in their voting process so only Bills that garner strong support get passed.
Simple majority votes are a cancer that is going to kill the golden goose.
Simple majority rule is old fashioned “democracy” that always failed in the end.
Just like all of the States should have an Electoral College Voting system that prevents large urban cities from controlling State Elections that deprive the rural areas a say in the Rules, Regulations, and Law that effect them.
We need more safeguards….not fewer that work to protect against One Party Rule.
Democrats have never advanced the agenda through normal legislative process.
You don’t have to be a scholar of history, to see this.
Covid brought it into the open.
the rent moratorium? And then when it was clear it violated the constitution. So….Biden upon advice of Tribe, just rewrote it, knowing it would take months to AGAIN work through the courts. Congress has the power….But Democrat ideas are anathema to the people, hence Congress.
Biden has extended student loan moratorium, because covid. Another agenda item Democrats have failed to even get a vote on. Democrats do not legislate, they are forced to mandate, because their Ideas are failures.
Normal legislative process like passing bills on majority vote? How odd.
“Whatever it takes,” sounds very authoritarian or totalitarian.
UpstateFarmer
To be a successful politician, you have to be a hypocrite.
Not if the voters recognize hypocrisy and vote against it. That is just one of the problems. Democrats buy votes. That is what all this spending is about.
S. Meyer,
I would also say, “Not if the voters recognize tyranny, and vote against it.”
This rhetoric, along with the “by any means necessary,” is chilling in the tyranny sense.
Biden is Obama’s 3rd term. But Biden can’t use his lineage to bulldog. Heck he can’t string together a paragraph. That being said… the Democrats took democracy away from the American taxpaying citizens and have no intention of changing their homophobic behavior. You will speak with one voice or else.
“President Biden has never been a prisoner to principle.”
I’m reminded of Hunter Thompson’s characterization of Hubert Humphrey. Seems apt here as well
I don’t think there are 50 votes in the Senate to change the filibuster. But the rhetoric of “whatever it takes” suggests a willingness to use executive power to do what ordinarily would require legislation. Obscure provisions of old laws will suddenly be discovered to have authorised sweeping actions through the delegation of powers never contemplated. This was the strategy used in the eviction moratorium and the vaccine mandates. Unless the Supreme Court takes a strong position on this when it decides the vaccine mandate cases the practice will grow. Even with strong decisions, expect to see more lawless action. The progressives respect no limits, and Biden appears to have moved to their side.
The filibuster is not part of the Constitution and has already been modified multiple times. At the very least, it should be returned to its earlier form, a talking filibuster with a vote of all present, which would do more to encourage discussion than the current form.
” It is part of what the President now says is a strategy to muscle through the legislative by “whatever it takes.””
“It would federally preempt the laws in dozens of states and declare that Congress, not state legislatures, will now dictate how people vote in states”
The Imperial President is working towards “All hail Caesar!”
Where are our legislators to rein him in?
Trump started this with the certify the vote nonsense.
Sorry. Not entirely fair. Democrats have been pushing to change election rules (re: electoral college) for far longer than the nonsense Trump suggested.
Everyone should leave the checks and balances in place and stop messing with the balance of powers!
Enjoy your columns
He’ll never get it. Not with this Senate. Not with Manchin and Sinema.
He’ll never get it.
Shows how short sighted the Dems are.
Probably in 2022, majority in the senate will switch and the protection of the filibuster will be gone.
Don’t expect much bipartisanship from angry Republicans.
Are the Lefties determined to divide the country?
Trump divided the country more than any other president. He is still dividing the country with his Big Lie. Senate Republicans haven’t tried to act in a bipartisan way in years, at least since McConnell vowed to make Obama a one-term President.
Oh, good grief. You can’t blame this all on Trump. It’s like he just held up a mirror.
The divisions were building under Obama, too.
Prairie Rose,
Well said.
The divisions were forming well before Trump appeared on the political scene.
I didn’t blame it all on Trump. I explicitly noted that it preceded him.
The present republican party has it’s roots with Newt Gingrich and his contract ON America.
“Republicans haven’t tried to act in a bipartisan way in years”
It takes two to tango. That blame falls squarely on the Democrats, too. It’s no surprise Independents make up a huge chunk of the population. People are disgusted with both parties.
I said Senate Republicans. I was not talking about citizens in general. And no, Senate Democrats have not used the filibuster nearly as much as Senate Republicans.
And no, Senate Democrats have not used the filibuster nearly as much as Senate Republicans.
It’s like you think everybody was born last night.
I remember Schummer pocketed dozens of bills sent from the house, and never allowing them to committee.
So yet again, you hide behind pedantic language to avoid the truth.
No, I don’t think everybody was born last night, and there’s nothing pedantic in pointing out the difference between Senate Republicans (50 people) and Republicans (tens of millions of people).
What you’re describing isn’t a filibuster and has been done by McConnell even more than by Schumer. McConnell also did that with nominations, not just with bills.
Ya know it really doesn’t matter to them, they have alternate facts.
You always forget the origins when a lack of statesmanship is noted. Think Harry Reid. Omission of essential details only helps your case temporarily and extracts a more significant price in the long run.
The left has been violent throughout all our memories. The left has been mean-spirited and uncaring as well. Today, they are destroying the nation’s social fabric in a manner not different from Stalin’s because they recognize that people can be duped and bribed. Our enemies abroad are assisting this leftward movement by America because a weak America lets them act on the world stage in heinous fashions.
Take note of how left-wing policies are sapping the strength of America. Does anyone believe this doesn’t help our enemies?
Think about the logic. We had more gas than we needed. Biden stopped that, and now we don’t have enough. The middle class is thus faced with high gas taxes, and the price of heating homes will be increased tremendously. Since gas involves virtually everything, the middle class is pinched by the higher cost of goods and services.
Along with denying Americans production capability, Biden canceled the pipeline, further creating gas shortages in the future. That would have provided extra gas from the north, which may now end up in the port of our enemy, China. At the same time, the Russian pipeline was permitted, which strengthened our enemy Russia. Does anyone in their right mind think that Biden’s changes enhanced America’s strength? Of course not. They detracted from America’s strength while enhancing the strength of our enemies.
Of course, the fallback position of the left is the carbon footprint and pollution. Sending more gas to China increases the world’s carbon footprint and pollution many folds over. Preventing natural gas means that the fuel that has lowered the American carbon footprint will force other carbon-based materials to be used, increasing America’s carbon footprint. Everything Biden has done in the energy sector is bad for the environment and world peace.
Weren’t alive in the 60’s, were you?
Yes, I was.
“Trump divided the country more than any other president. ”
What a bunch of hogwash. ATS must have gotten his talking points early today. Trump existed, which was enough for Democrats to divide the country utilizing the DOJ, IRS, FISA Court, false indictments, lies and deceit.
Since everyone on this blog was born, the left has been trying to divide and conquer. The hostility we see mostly comes from the left. That is how the left survives. They pretend to be innocent, but all we have to do is go back into history and look at the violence they have created here and abroad. Over 100 million dead, killed by the left in the past century, which doesn’t include those killed in wars.
President Obama was the great divider. His “we are going to fundamentally change” this county statement set the tone. Without a President Obama there would not have been a President Trump. President Trump was elected to bring the country back to the middle. As I have always stated before, I am not a fan of President Trump but he was the least objectionable in 2016 and now it appears the better of the two in 2020.
No it’s people who are communist like yourself who divided America.
Trump divided the country more than any other president.
He didn’t divide the country, he exposed those hostile to it. Since 2017, he forced the Democrats to declare openly what they had tried to keep hidden. 11 months into the Biden presidency and a large majority in this country are rejecting this administration and the Democrat’s agenda. There was a time not long ago that the failing party would work within our constitutional system to seek compromises. But not for today’s Democrats. They are no longer pretending to honor our constitutional system. They are openly hostile to it, and will, by any means necessary, rip it up by its roots to force their radical socialist agenda on this country.
Go back in time to the 1990s where the Clintons started us down the path of dividing our country. Recall it was Bill Clinton who fired all US Attorneys simply because he wanted to frame the narrative with his people. He undermined the US legal system from day 1. He was a snake, a rapist, an opportunist, a liar like no under president in previous years, as was his codependent wife, Hillary
Bill and Hillary were the visible figure heads for divide and conquer, but they had millions of apologists enabling them, and victimizing women in the process.
“Vast right wing conspiracy”…..just like the Communists did in Cuba: dividid y conquistar
Their legacy continues in the present manipulating of elections under Democrats, George Soros funding Marxist Attorneys, and scandals ala Hunter Biden that make immigrants like me conclude: we do not recognize the United States anymore.
make immigrants like me conclude: we do not recognize the United States anymore.
Estovir,
The framer’s knew, that upon ratification, our constitutional republic would be subject to attack from foreign and domestic enemies. For the most part, our foreign enemies have been easily identifiable. It’s the domestic enemies that have been so confounding. They look like us. They speak the same language. They come from our neighborhoods, cities, counties and states. They attend our schools. They shop in our stores. They eat the same foods. They even take oaths declaring their fidelity to our constitutional order. And yet in 100 years, our country is nearly $30 trillion in debt, with a massive administrative state that is carrying out an outright assault on our lives, liberty and property of our citizens. The banner of progressivism has been carried by both major political parties, in blatant defiance of their oaths of office. I say blatant, if anyone bothered to use the constitution as a measure against the threat from domestic enemies. Our political parties have wittingly and/or unwittingly run cover for those enemies that have infiltrated every area in our federal and state bureaucracies.
I believe now that those enemies have a bright light shining on their agenda, the American people are beginning to recognize the threat to what is still the greatness of the United States. It won’t be solved by citizens declaring their fidelity to the Democrats or Republicans. It will be solved by citizens that declare their fidelity to this great country.
This opinion piece has it spot on:
In politics, laws are changed to match the whims of politicians—mere mortals who do not have a higher sense of knowing or purpose, but who are elected because they are popular or good at raising campaign money. Their principles aren’t written in stone, but rather change frequently, as do the ruling politicians themselves. The laws they hand down are imposed by force instead of bought into by choice.
Yet, despite this, people have been spending more time worshiping at the altar of a chosen political party. They live, breathe and pray politics. The political issues du jour become an all-consuming guide for living life. Moreover, they don’t seek to solve problems personally or even in their communities. Rather, they look to the government to be there for anything and everything.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/government-not-god-carol-roth
The invention of Nukes was huge. This news is likely larger then that:
Harvard scientist Dr. Charles Lieber, nanowires, DoD, CCP, Wuhan, covid, 5G, carbon nanotubes (CNT), military vaccines, SpFN Spike Ferritin Nanoparticles and more
Wednesday, December 22, 2021 by: Mike Adams
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-12-22-harvard-scientist-dr-charles-lieber-nanowires-dod-ccp-wuhan-covid-5g-vaccine-bioweapons.html
************
US military to roll out Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID vaccine (SpFN) that we fear is designed to kill active duty troops and weaken America’s military defenses
Thursday, December 23, 2021 by: Mike Adams
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-12-23-us-military-to-roll-out-spike-ferritin-nanoparticle-covid-vaccine-spfn.html#
Monument asks:
“Are the Lefties determined to divide the country?”
Trumpists chant:
“Lock her up”
“Hang Mike Pence”
“Jews will not replace us”
Trumpists have love in their hearts.
Another jew hater posts his nonsense.
He quoted someone else’s antisemitism.
Thanks, Sam
You’re welcome.
(Now where’s my SE?)
SE? I’m afraid that reference eludes me.
“SE” = Screaming Eagle.
At those prices, the reference would elude me, too.
If you are ever in the Bay Area, let me know. I’ll share a cult cab with you.
Deal.
Thanks.