HEY CORPORATE MEDIA: STOP SAYING "BLOCK," SAY "FILIBUSTER" INSTEAD

Let's be accurate about this. The Dems had 5 more votes than they needed to WIN. They eventually lost because the Republicans do what Democrats will not: they FILIBUSTERED this bill to shut it down.

Say the word. "Fil-i-bus-ter." And use it. Show everybody how unseemly and disgusting it is for the GOP to talk for hours to defeat a bill that would have provided much needed rest for troops on deployment tracks.

Tune in to Rachel Maddow's show on Air America, in process at posting time, for more about this point.

On my drive in to work I heard NPR say something to the effect that the Senate would not have the 60 votes required to pass the bill. Huh? It takes a simple majority to pass a bill. It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster!

Gee how things have changed in just a few years! Seems like yesterday, when Dems were considering a filibuster the Reps were acting as if it was radioactive or something to filibuster. All we heard was let the votes be counted. yadayada. And the media bought in to this.

Now, NPR cannot even be accurate in its reporting! It has to spin it for us to believe it takes 60 votes to "pass" a bill. I guess they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that the Reps were filibustering. That might have cut down on pledges from corporations, I guess....

and why aren't THEY also calling attention to the FACT that we only need 51?

Aren't we all getting a little sick of the word games?

in Iraq, without ever once using the word mercenaries.

Instead they refered to them as "private contractors."

HEY CORPORATE MEDIA--get THIS memo:

Extending debate repeatedly and then using the time to blab on and on is a FILIBUSTER. Don't give us that crap about "Parliamentary mechanisms" or other such drivel. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and flies like a duck IT'S A DUCK!"

Every Democrat voting today voted for cloture.

damn...even i was starting to use their talking point...jeesh

The GOP has managed to convince the corporate media to use any number of terms besides "filibuster" for GOP filibusters..... "super-majority" "block" "parliamentary maneuvers".....


But if Democrats were to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee, it would be a "filibuster".

What pressure has come from these corporate boardrooms to create this media complicity?

On the important issues, I simply do not see it.

Operation Mockingbird v2.0 and the Orwellian cionsideration of which words to use (and which, somehow magically, all seem to spring at the same time from everybody's keyboards all at once...you'd think at least ONE large news outlet would call it a filibuster, which is what it is) are alive and well.

The danger to America is still close. We could still lose this country to the Loyal and Royal Bushies. History shows, once they are done liquidatng the System of Checks and Balances, they will give their Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers permission to do some terrible things to the rest of us.

Thanks for the sig. link.

-Laelth

As in: "THE BILL DID NOT HAVE TIME TO ADVANCE," or, "GOP LEADERS BLOCKED THE DEMOCRAT ATTEMPTS TO ADVANCE THE BILL FURTHER."

This last example of a "technical term of art" came right from the mouth of Dan Ashley at KGO-TV in San Francisco moments ago.

CUT IT OUT, you slimey disgusting ratass corporate media bastards. START TELLING THE TRUTH for a change.

As in:"During their FILIBUSTER, GOP leaders talked for hours to defeat the bill, that would have provided pre-deployment rest for troops on the way to the Iraq and Afganistan."

Thanks for the thread redacted.

...need to also start using the correct terms.

Let's face it, the media will continue doing what they are doing until they are called on it. And much as they would like to, they cannot refuse to ever have Democrats on their shows. When they have Democrats on their shows, I expect to hear said Democrats calling it like it is, and using the proper terminology: filibuster, obstructionist, no up-or-down vote, etc.

It just isn't that hard.

If you can't control the terminology, how can you control the debate and frame the issues?

...and you'd think it's a lesson we'd have learned by now, seeing as how we've had our butts kicked for lo, these many years in this arena (framing the debate).