FOX & Friends spew b.s. amidst their crocodile tears . . .

Media Matters does the heavy lifting once again which the stagnant, weak-kneed mainstream refuses or is too cowardly to do.

In this case it's exposing the deceit from the right-wingers and FOX Noize surrounding the Democrats potential use of the congressional reconciliation process to pass Health Care Reform. The conservatives are desperately, desperately trying to redefine reconciliation as the dreaded "nuclear option" and paint the Democratic caucus as hypocrites because they protested against it previously.

The official definition of the "nuclear option" is:

...the nuclear option is an attempt by a majority of the United States Senate to end a filibuster by invoking a point of order to essentially declare the filibuster unconstitutional which can be decided by a simple majority, rather than seeking formal cloture with a supermajority of 60 senators.

There is, of course, a colossal flaw with the wingnut's argument -- the "nuclear option" was a term coined by Republican Senator Trent Lott in 2005 and it was referring solely to then-Majority Leader Bill Frist's (Republican of Tennessee) threats to use it to end Democratic-led filibusters of judicial nominees submitted by President George W. Bush.

Reconciliation on the other hand (pay attention conservatards - you might learn something) is an established legislative tool that has been around for 35+ years and has been used to move legislative agendas from tax increases, decreases, budget reforms...etc. forward without the threat of filibuster. It has been used by both parties over the past three decades , mostly by Republicans of course, to advance their legislative agendas in the face of opposition party filibuster threats.

So the true hypocrites in this whole sordid affair are the GOP whiners and their dancing toads in the media and blogosphere.

So the facts of the matter are that Republicans have been the predominant exploiters of the reconciliation process over the years, but now that the Democrats are in power and the GOP is playing it's wholly partisan obstruct everything games, the Dems have decided to use the same legislative process that the Republicans have used and suddenly it's "the end of the world as we know it!" Lol -- if it wasn't so pathetic, it would be funny.

And once again, and not unexpectedly, which media outlet is leading the disinformation campaign on behalf of the GOP? FOX News -- a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican National Committee.



----k