Obstruction

The official line coming from the six GOP senators who sponsored, then voted against, the failed proposal to create a deficit commission was that they didn’t realize it would allow the panel to suggest tax hikes as a step toward balancing the federal budget.
A spokesman for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), for example, told Politico that [...]

Alexander Bolton has an important story in the The Hill about conservative division — polite so far — over whether the party’s stalwart Senate minority should be employing so many filibusters of Obama nominees. The main opposition is coming from Manny Miranda, who wants Republicans to use filibusters to actually force lengthy debates on nominees. [...]

Congress this year is on a tear against bad behavior in the corporate world. Lawmakers have passed credit card reforms to protect Americans from the worst abuses of the big banks; they’re moving now on health reforms to protect Americans from the worst practices of the insurance industry; they’re pushing new finance regulations to protect [...]

In the wake of the Senate’s failure to pass the bailout for the “Big Three” automakers due to a threatened Republican filibuster, I’d like to expand on an excellent point made by Josh Marshall over at TPM.
What I do think makes sense is for the majority to actually require the minority to filibuster — as [...]